William E. Cleary Sr. | CNBNews
CNBNews photo
GLOUCESTER CITY, NJ (Sept. 9, 2026)–For nearly a year, letter carriers assigned to the Riverview Heights section of Gloucester City have continued to stuff mail into the mailbox at 31 Barnard Avenue until it is literally overflowing. The photograph above documents a situation that should have been addressed long ago.
Rather than recognizing that the homeowner was not collecting the mail and taking appropriate action, carriers continued to force additional letters, advertisements, and other correspondence into a box that had clearly reached capacity. The result was a pileup of mail that became impossible to manage and increased the risk of damaged, lost, or stolen correspondence.
What makes this situation particularly troubling is that it cannot be blamed on a single employee. Over the past year, multiple carriers have served this route. In addition to the regular letter carrier, the route is periodically covered by a reserve carrier, also known as a reserve regular. These career Postal Service employees do not have permanently assigned routes and instead fill in where needed, covering vacations, sick leave, and other absences.
As someone who worked for the U.S. Postal Service, I find the situation difficult to understand. I began working at the Gloucester City Post Office during the Christmas rush in 1961 while I was a freshman in high school. I returned each holiday season until graduating in 1963 and later became a full-time postal employee from 1967 until a job-related injury ended my postal career in 1978. During those years, carriers were taught to watch for accumulating mail and report situations where mail was obviously not being collected.
Current Postal Service regulations place responsibilities on both customers and carriers. The Postal Operations Manual states that customers are responsible for providing and maintaining an appropriate mailbox for mail delivery and keeping access to the box clear. When a mailbox becomes full because mail is not being removed, the situation is generally considered an interruption of normal delivery service. Postal procedures allow accumulating mail to be held at the local post office and, if unclaimed after the applicable holding period, returned to the sender. USPS also offers Hold Mail service for customers who expect to be away from home for an extended period. [about.usps.com], [manuals.plus] [usps.com]
While there is debate among postal employees and former postal workers about the precise timeframe used by local offices before mail is pulled and held, there is little question that allowing a mailbox to remain stuffed for months is not what postal regulations contemplate. A mailbox overflowing for nearly a year should have triggered action long before it reached this stage.
The most basic requirement of the job is not a college degree. Mail delivery is demanding physical work that also requires observation, judgment, and common sense. When a mailbox is packed so tightly that mail is protruding from the opening and exposed to the elements, any reasonable person can see there is a problem.
Yet the carriers assigned to this route continued to cram more mail into the box day after day, week after week, and month after month.
The obvious question remains:
Why was nothing done?
For a government agency that emphasizes efficiency, security, and accountability in mail delivery, this scene is difficult to defend. Consider too the price of stamp is now
Simply unbelievable.
Cleary’s Notebook News photo
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