Attention Delivery Drivers:
When you deliver a package, ring the damn door bell. Don't just drop it- or toss it- near the front door and run.
If you don't, it can sit there for hours- or even overnight- offering up a fat target to porch pirates...or getting soaked in the rain- like yesterday's delivery by the Amazon van.
Here's a chance for an invention. Make an outdoor rug that rings a doorbell if it has weight on it for a few seconds or minutes.
While I agree with you, there is a solution. Ring doorbell. You get a notice even if not home.
The delivery guy ringing the doorbell won't help either if he isn't at home.
Another option is the Amazon app on a smartphone. I know when my packages are 10 stops away and can track them from that point on.
Again, doesn't help if you're not home, but you could head home once the delivery is close.
The most foolproof option might be to use an Amazon locker, assuming you have them in your area. Safe, secure and dry. You can drop off returns also. No lines, just put your package in the assigned locker and you're done.
Here's what they look like:
No theft problem where I live but have walked out the front door nearly tripping over packages left there. Also nearly run over one put near my garage under the overhang.
Attention Delivery Drivers:
Go to the back door and place the package on the table that we have provided, underneath the overhang that will protect it from the elements.
We'll get a text or e-mail when you've recorded the delivery.
Cindy Hamilton
I sure hope that that is your version of sarcasm.
Why do you say that? With UPS you can specify where to leave a package. My mailman did that too, putting things on a bench.
also get a text. Are you signed up for USPS Informed Delivery? UPS? FexEx? They all have apps.
Maybe Amazon should give you a sign. "Ring" or "Don't Ring". I don't want the Amazon guy playing ding dong ditch at my house. OTOH I don't live in a place where porch piracy is a huge problem.
That is what I have here. I have a bench under cover and they leave the packages there. It is protected by a watch snake.
It's a little sarcastic, but it's also true. We want our packages delivered to the back door. The table is mostly for our convenience (for example, to set down a bag of groceries while I unlock the door), but it's also nice to have packages put on it.
Cindy Hamilton
On Thu, 10 Jun 2021 13:56:02 -0400, Ed Pawlowski posted for all of us to digest...
+1 IIRC they all support delivery instructions. Like every person they have good traits & bad. IDK if the people have instructions to ring the doorbell. Jeff has got to squeeze the last penny out of everyone.
Is that bench in your backyard?
Delivery instructions are one thing, and a bench under cover is also a great idea. It was the "back door" that I have a slight issue with.
UPS's language is "Shipments that do not require a signature can be left in a safe place, out of sight and out of weather, at the driver's discretion.
Note the last 4 words.
I've seen some backyards that I wouldn't want to go into in the daylight, never mind after the sun has set. I wonder how many UPS drivers use their discretion and simply decide "I'm not going anywhere out of sight of the street or my truck."
I wouldn't ask a delivery person to go to my back door even though I live in a very quiet, safe, and essentially secluded neighborhood. I think it's too much to ask a delivery person to navigate my steeply sloped walkway or rustic stone steps down to my walk-out basement level back yard.
There is a huge number of possible hazards that could be encountered in the backyard of any given dwelling and I don't feel that it is right to ask a delivery person to take risks just so my precious package isn't sitting on the front stoop for a few hours.
I order thousands of dollars worth of stuff on-line every year and I have yet to have a single item stolen or ruined by the weather. I live in the rust belt BTW, so it's not all sunshine and daisies.
And I have all their apps, plus the Amazon app. That also wasn't my point.
You do have to have some sensibility as my bench in the back was a short walk, all level, paved or concrete.
If a hazard, driver discretion. Not everyone has hazards to the back door. In my present house, it is front door and not visible from the street. I'd not specify back door.
Do you get packages that you weren't expecting? I can't remember the last time that I have. When I order something, I track its delivery progress, especially on the day of delivery.
My wife and I place orders with Amazon 2-4 times a week, so we're always tracking multiple deliveries. Maybe we're just used to it.
Everybody's situation is different. I described mine. Yours is different, and what works for me probably won't work for you. What works for you probably won't work for other people, which was my point in posting my original reply.
My neighborhood is safer than the one in which the UPS depot is located. My yard is nearly flat and it's an easy walk to the patio door at the back of the house. It's only about 40 feet longer than leaving things on the front stoop.
The UPS guy is cool with all of that. It's the Amazon guys who are prone to chuck the package at their first reasonable opportunity, because Bezos is always pushing them. I'm pretty sure the UPS guy isn't required to pee in a bottle so he can make more deliveries.
Cindy Hamilton
Yah, and pitbulls are every delivery driver's best friend...just ask them.
WTF? I don't have a dog. My yard isn't even fenced. Where, precisely, did I suggest that everybody receive their deliveries at the back door?
Cindy Hamilton
Amazon sells it, I wonder if Amazon drivers honor it. ;-)
Then, how do you make sure they leave the package on the rug?
I have a little metal table next to my front door for packages (it's also behind a hedge so the package is hard to see from the street). Packages ae often left on the ground.
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