HARRIS COUNTY – For nearly a year, some homeowners at the Windsong neighborhood in West Harris County had to drive roughly a mile to the post office to pick up their mail. The cluster mailbox they used was damaged and postal workers wouldn’t deliver their mail worried someone could steal it.
The homeowner association spent months going back-and-forth with officials at the United States Postal Service trying to replace it.
The HOA president shared a copy of a $2,875 receipt showing they paid for a replacement August 24, 2023. Despite the payment nothing happened.
“We’re just stuck. We’re at the mercy of the postal service,” said HOA President Rick Gomez to KPRC 2′s Rilwan Balogun in February.
Gomez said their last-ditch effort was reaching out to KPRC 2 for help.
Balogun reached out to the USPS spokesperson for several days trying to understand the issue. He first was told the HOA didn’t pay for the replacement. He shared a copy of a signed receipt to the spokesperson who then confirmed the payment.
Gomez said a few days after our story aired, they had movement.
“I think the coverage probably played a big factor in it because evidentially somebody higher up saw it and said, ‘oh we need to get this done,’ Gomez said. “As soon as it aired, a day or two later they contacted the management company.”
Gomez said a homeowner sent him a message a few weeks ago when the cluster unit was replaced.
“It might not be a big deal for the ones who have their own private mailboxes in their yard but it is a big deal for the people who are trying to get whether their checks, their medicines, their whatever. It’s a big deal to them,” Gomez said.
Gomez and the HOA vice president Bijay Dixit spent Wednesday (April 3, 2024) driving around the neighborhood checking the condition of other cluster units in hopes of getting replacements sooner.
“We want to be proactive instead of reactive. I think whenever you become reactive it takes longer to fix,” said Gomez.