Animal’s Owner Defiant : Carrier’s Fear of Dog Halts Mail on Street

The Postal Service has instructed carriers not to deliver letters to a Van Nuys cul-de-sac until a bad-tempered dog named Sweetness is locked up.

All week, mail carrier Christi Bell said Thursday, she has pulled up to the 16000 block of Cantlay Street in her truck, seen the dog outside and turned around without delivering mail to the 40 residents.

The non-delivery has inconvenienced the neighborhood and forced elderly people to go to the post office to pick up their Social Security checks, Bell said.

Neighbors Complain

One neighbor, Beverly Scherer, said that she has been moved to write and complain to the post office for the first time in her life and that a friend, Linda Pitts, called the post office and the city. “I’m just disgusted,” she said. “I just don’t know what to do anymore.”

Bell has worked the postal route for six months. She said the dog, a male German shepherd mix, often lies in wait for her behind a tree, then rushes at her when she walks by. To avoid Sweetness, she said, she has run away. Sometimes she has run onto other people’s porches.

According to Richard Ordonez, director of postal customer service for Van Nuys, carriers are told not to deliver mail if they feel endangered by dogs. Although it is more common for mail to be withheld from a single house, entire blocks may be sealed off.

Postal officials said the dog’s owner, Eileen Tilt, has refused to comply with three requests in three months to keep her pet inside or tied up.

Angry Response

Sweetness often sits in Tilt’s fenced-in front yard. Unfortunately, according to authorities, Sweetness can work the latch.

On Thursday, Tilt responded angrily from her front yard as a reporter, a city animal control officer and two postal workers gathered in front of her house.

Tilt said other dogs, not her pet, were responsible for the non-delivery of mail. She conceded that she does not know if the dog roams the street. But, she said, “Sweetness is always in the yard when I come home from work.”

One resident said she called the West Valley Animal Shelter and was told that two visits to Cantlay Street had turned up no animals in violation of the leash law.

“If we don’t observe animals . . . we can’t impound them,” said Lt. Linda Gordon, an animal control officer.

But other neighbors said Sweetness has intimidated the mail carrier and often prowls the neighborhood during the day.

“That dog has come over and tried to bite me,” said Tina Zakovec, who lives across the street.

“Everybody’s told her to keep the dog in,” Jimmy Degenstein, another neighbor, said.

The conference between Tilt and the authorities was inconclusive. It consisted largely of Tilt’s shouting at her visitors.

Until Sweetness is restrained, there will be no mail, a postal official said later.

“We don’t want our carrier bit,” he said.

The official said he also felt that the animal shelter was not being cooperative.

‘Could Solve the Problem’

“If they would work with us a little better, we could solve the problem,” he said.

Gordon countered that the shelter was powerless to act unless a dog was observed running loose in the street.

But Cantlay Street residents may soon have their mail back. In the brief interview in her yard, Tilt said her landlord plans to evict her because of Sweetness.