An open letter to MP Russ Hiebert (South Surrey-White Rock-Cloverdale).
We are another couple of unhappy South Surrey residents.
We are writing about community mailboxes. Ours has been compromised several times over the last few years – that we know about. Who know how many more times it has happened? Who knows if it was stolen mail that caused my credit card to be compromised, which has happened almost yearly for the last four to five years?
A few weeks ago, our boxes were compromised yet again, and they were taped off. For several weeks we had to go to the South Surrey mail office to get our mail.
The joke is that the office is only open for mail pickup from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. What on earth does a Monday-to-Friday working person do?
This week, I noticed the amount of mail was growing, as were the lines for people picking up their mail.
Well, we got our brand-spanking-new mailboxes this week. What a joke! The way they have been installed is so flimsy! You can push them around, they are not fixed firmly, the bolts securing the base on the bottom stand one to two inches off the concrete.
Then, in yesterday’s Peace Arch News, we saw the article that the new boxes have been violated too, only this time the thieves removed the whole box (Mail theft reroutes upset residents, Feb. 26).
We have done our part: we pick up our mail daily; we’ve reduced our snail mail; most of our important mail and bills come by email notification. But we receive mail for two businesses to our home address, and the city and the government of Canada do not send their mail by email.
This is a huge problem. When we go on vacation, we have finally resorted to a house-sitter, as our neighbours don’t want to pick up our mail anymore, as we are out of town frequently.
To have our mail held it would be $40 per week. If we are gone for a month, that is $160. That is atrocious!
Now, we are being forced to consider getting a post office box and doing an address change, just to protect our business and identity, and that would be at over $150 annually.
We, as Canadian residents, have to spend our retirement income to protect ourselves. Surely, there is something wrong with this picture. There must be a solution.
Elsie Siemens, Surrey
