Residents of a senior living community just outside Apache Junction are finding themselves in a protracted struggle with the U.S. Postal Service due to a damaged mail cluster box that has disrupted their service for almost a year. As reported by ABC15, a dozen homeowners have had to make multiple trips per week to the local post office just to collect their letters and packages—a situation that was supposed to be temporary but has now stretched into a ten-month saga.
The problems began in January when the neighborhood's cluster box unit was damaged, and the Postal Service stopped delivering mail directly to the community. Chuck Cuffaro, a resident affected by the change, told ABC15, "There’s no sense of efficiency or care as far as I can tell." The community, which consists largely of older adults, has some who face difficulty driving or cannot easily leave their homes, transforming what used to be a convenient mail retrieval process into a burdensome chore to simply stay connected with the outside world.
Ed Pullen, president of the Mountainbrook Village HOA, expressed his concerns to local representatives and the U.S. Postal Service but reportedly faced weeks of unreturned calls and emails. As Garage Essalmi outlined, even after Pullen reached out to Pinal County, Congressman Eli Crane, and Senator Mark Kelly's offices, the response was slow in coming. "They wouldn’t even answer the phone. I’ve got a log of two weeks of constantly making phone calls," Pullen said.
According to the U.S. Postal Service, the delay in resolving this issue is primarily due to the need to find an approved location for the new cluster box that meets Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requirements. Recently, the agency claimed to have made progress, stating they have approved a location and are now working on acquiring additional permits and awarding contracts. Despite this, the service has not provided any definitive timeline for installation. "It’s terrible and I’m sure as we approach the Christmas season at the post office, if you’ve ever seen lines at the post office around then, just to get mail it’s not a matter of walking in and picking up mail, you get in line," Cuffaro told ABC15, expressing concerns about potential further delays.
Patricia McKay, a homeowner who was unable to collect her mail due to surgery, explained her frustration to ABC15, saying, "It’s just been a horrible, horrible mess." The ongoing situation has placed a spotlight on the difficulties some residents face in the absence of reliable mail service. Pinal County has released a statement ensuring their continued effort to work with the USPS to get this issue resolved for the community as quickly as possible, a sentiment echoed by the statements said by said officials and reported by local media sources. However, until the new cluster box is in place, residents are left to continue their inconvenient trips with no end immediately in sight.
