Australia Post this week resumed their service to Amaranthus Street in Runcorn after more than three weeks of refusing to deliver mail to the street’s residents and ‘black listing’ the road as an “exclusion zone”.
The reason? Brian the Boxer had been playing bouncer at number 29 and posties refused to risk life and limb to deliver mail in the street where the one-year-old dog lives.
“Australia Post has been in contact with the police who confirmed they spoke with the resident (dog’s owner) this morning and the issue has been resolved,” an Australia Post spokesperson said in a statement.
“Australia Post is now satisfied that the safety of our postie is no longer a threat and we will resume mail delivery to residents tomorrow.”
“Australia Post reminds the community that the safety of our people is our highest priority and incidents of violence and intimidation will not be tolerated.”
“This issue came about not as a result of a stray dog, but the physical and verbal assault of our posties.”
(IMAGE: Not Brian, but probably some resemblance)
The incident involving the owners of the dog is said to have happened in late July and resulted in the cessation of mail delivery to a section of the street since the 4th of August.
But after a month of no mail service, the residents of Amaranthus Street are not amused by the incident.
“My bank card expired in August and I couldn’t get any money out, so I had to get the bank to send another one to my office address,” Jack Chang, 40, said to News.com.au.
“We’ve never been told what’s going on and we only found out through neighbours,” complained Darryl Hansen adding that the Australia Post customer service representatives he spoke to told him he would have been notified about the exclusion zone via mail.
“But we can’t get any letters!” he said.
“They’ve offered to have our mail redirected to Sunnybank or Runcorn post offices when I called them but because of the way they’ve handled this situation, I’ve refused.
“I’m also sending any late fees their way,” said a furious Hansen.
A neighbour who witnessed the incident that lead to the street being branded an “exclusion zone” said that her neighbour’s dog ran out their front door and two houses down the street towards the postman. She confirmed that although the dog was barking he did not bite the postal worker.
She says she took hold of Brian and brought him back to his owners when a verbal war broke out between the postie and the female resident of the house to which the women’s partner reacted.
But Brian’s ‘parents’ say they have not been contacted by either by Australia Post or the Queensland Police Service.
Quoted on News.com.au the women said, “We feel terrible. We shouldn’t have to, but I’ve said to some of the neighbours that I would pick up some of their mail if they needed me too.”
TOP IMAGE: File image of an Australian postman ( GREG WOOD/AFP/Getty Images)