'The mailbox wasn't there': Woman says Canada Post moved community mailbox without notice
CBC
For weeks, Natalia Da Costa has been making a point of never skipping her trips to check the community mailbox for dozens of residents in her London, Ont., neighbourhood.
Like other people across Ontario, Da Costa's surgery has been pushed back as the COVID-19 pandemic forces hospitals to cancel surgeries.
Still, she was making daily trips to the mailbox in hopes of getting a letter about a date for the procedure to fix an esophageal hernia that's been troubling her.
On Monday, there was still no mail about the surgery — and the mailbox wasn't there either.
"I looked and I looked, and I thought, 'Have I lost my mind?'" she told CBC News.
Since moving to a new development in Summerside in May, Da Costa has collected her mail at a bank of six community mailboxes on Chelton Road, about two blocks from her house.
When she arrived Monday, only the concrete footings remained. The mailboxes were gone.
Da Costa remembers that when she moved in last year, a notification from Canada Post said the mailbox location was temporary and eventually, a permanent location would be found in the subdivision, which is being developed with new homes.
But Da Costa said she and her husband received no notification about the new location.
CBC News initially emailed Canada Post on Thursday for comment and reached out to them again on Friday. After the story was published, Canada Post said residents were notified about the new mailbox location on Jan. 7.
Da Costa, however, maintains she received no such notice.
"The whole mailbox was gone," she said. "We didn't know — we thought maybe it got stolen. I started panicking and getting very anxious. I was worried about identity theft. All that went through my mind."
The couple filed a complaint with Canada Post on Monday, and were told they would have a call back in 24 hours. When Wednesday rolled around, Da Costa called again.
"I told them, 'I'm expecting urgent mail to come through,' and you know, 'Where's my mail?" she said. "The [Canada Post] woman said, 'I don't know.'"
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