PLEASANT MOUNT, Pa. — For the past week, people near Pleasant Mount and the surrounding areas have checked their mailboxes daily only to find them to be empty.
Colleen Richner is one of those people on that particular route and wondered why they haven't had mail delivered.
"I just put on Facebook asking if anybody got any mail on this route, and they said no. Then I got some private messages explaining that the mailman quit," Richner said.
Richner says she now has to drive about 10 miles from her home to Forest City to pick up her mail. It's not a huge deal to her, but she worries about the older folks who may not know the mail won't be delivered.
"They don't have social media, they don't text, so maybe if they are just watching the news and it said you don't have mail, so yes, it could have been better communicated," Richner said.
It may not be a big deal for people to come and pick up their mail from the post office here, but it is a problem for businesses whose customers rely on home delivery.
"We've lost a lot of subscribers. If you're not getting your newspaper, you're paying so much a year for a newspaper, and you get it two weeks late. This is a weekly newspaper, so we just can't handle it," said Patricia Striefsky.
Striefsky is the publisher for the Forest City News and says she'd hate to see the business that's been around for 134 years come to an end if there weren't enough subscribers to keep it up and running.
"We have about 2,000 subscribers right now, and if we lost many more, it would be detrimental," Striefsky said.
The holidays are also approaching. Anyone shopping online should take into consideration that the post offices are already backlogged with regular mail, and it could put an extra strain on holiday shipping deadlines.
There is no official word from the postal service about a solution anytime soon.