Some Hazards Put Mail Service on Hold

Rain, sleet and gloom of night may not stay a mail courier, but aggressive addressees, bees, hawks and dogs sure can be discouraging.

A recent incident in Syracuse, N.Y., attracted attention when a woman demanded that her mailman also deliver as a male man.

He resisted.

She persisted.

Delivery desisted.

Sexual advances toward letter carriers are nothing new, said Robert West of the Delivery Management Division of the Postal Service, but he added: “This is the first one I have heard of where there was a cutoff” of mail deliveries.

As to whether all carriers could be expected to complain about sexual advances, West said: “There’s no time allowance . . . for that.”

Having the postal service refuse to deliver can also be caused by something as mundane as a missing mailbox--or something as exotic as nudity.

One carrier refused to take mail to a nudist colony near Tampa, Fla., until residents built a wall around their lifestyle.

Most often, West said, mail is stopped for reasons of security. The problem usually is resolved quickly; no nationwide statistics are kept.

“These decisions are made at the local level,” said Richard McKillop, also of the delivery management division. “We only get involved when the case gets appealed up.”

The 1990 World Series earthquake in San Franciaco and the 1980 eruption of Mt. St. Helens in Washington were “ample reason for mail not get through for a few days,” said postal spokesman Bil Paul of San Jose, Calif.

“Fraud is another reason,” McKillop said. “If a company is found to be committing mail fraud, delivery can be stopped by the Postal Inspection Service.”

Bees sometimes nest in or near rural mailboxes, causing carriers to stay away, McKillop said. Other hazards are presented by porches or driveways under repair and muddy or hazardous country roads.

Occasionally, a carrier is threatened if a check or other item doesn’t arrive as expected, he said.

Drew von Bergen of the National Assn. of Letter Carriers cited a couple of instances when deliveries were suspended in crime-ridden housing projects.

Paul, who says he cut his teeth as a carrier in the projects of San Francisco, said: “You develop a kind of 360-degree vision” on routes in hazardous areas.

Halting the mail because of crime is unusual, both agreed.

Dangerous animals were mentioned again and again as the problem most likely to cause a cutoff--and the animals aren’t always pets.

Mississippi Kite hawks began attacking a mail carrier in Snyder, Tex.

The birds have a 2-foot wingspan, carrier Pat Wittie said, “but when they dive-bomb you, you would swear the span is closer to 8 feet.”

She contacted state officials after the birds knocked mail out of her hand and knocked off her helmet. Nothing could be done, however, because the hawks belong to an endangered species.

A temporary cluster of mailboxes was set up away from the birds until they finished nesting.

Carrier Ed Brown of Brady, Tex., spent four days in a hospital after an encounter with a rattlesnake. He dropped a piece of mail and was bitten when he reached down into some weeds to retrieve it. He continued on his appointed rounds for about 20 minutes, until the pain and swelling convinced him the bite was serious enough to seek help.

Despite the occasional encounter with snakes, tigers, alligators and other exotic animals, dogs get the most attention.

Carriers in Hyattsville, Md., have gone so far as to do a television show dramatizing the problem, complete with a “Rockettes-style” dance in which they display their dog-bite scars.

While statistics are lacking, estimates of the number of letter carriers bitten by dogs run as high as 8,000 annually, at a cost of $7 million or more in medical treatment.