The signs I put in front a year or so ago, asking the Beloved Amazon Dude or Dudette to please bring packages inside the courtyard and not leave them out on the driveway, rotted away in the blasting sun and the driving rain.
Interestingly, the signs actually work! The Amazonians do bring their deliveries into the courtyard, and the porch pirates apparently prefer not to expend enough energy (or risk being videotaped) to come inside the courtyard and steal stuff.
So this morning I spent an hour rejiggering three signs, sealing them into plastic holders, and securing them to the gates and the front door.
Hassle City! You not only have to redraw the signs, you have to snurchle them into the kind of plastic holder that goes into a 3-ring binder and then seal the plastic holder all the way around with layers of Scotch tape. Then you have to slither plastic strip things into the binder holes so as to use the plastic strips to secure the signs to the steel gates. These last — in the Land of 110-degree heat — a year or more.
Yea, verily: a first-class PITA. But less so, I suppose, than having to drive to Target or Safeway or Albertson’s or Walgreen’s or the hardware store to buy every little thing you need, when you need it. Over the past few years, I reckon Amazon has saved me a surprising amount not only in gasoline but in wear-&-tear on the car. And nerves: half the time when you go into a retail store’s parking lot around here, some transient barges up and demands a hand-out. Guess I’d druther pay Amazon a little more on the retail price of this, that, or the other dingbat than having to dodge or repel the local drug addicts.
One of the neighbors — a lively techno-type — set up a camera in front of his house and found it recorded some woman in her car following the Amazon truck. The minute the Amazon driver would climb back behind his steering wheel after dropping off a package, she’d jump out, run up to the front door, grab the package, race back to her car, toss the package in the back seat, and take off down the road after the Amazon truck.
Persuading the Amazon drivers to bring packages INSIDE a gated patio has worked well to discourage this chickadee and her ilk.
You can also leave delivery instructions in your Amazon account in the address section. This information is seen by the driver and therefore makes the driver more responsible if anything goes wrong wiith the delivery.
Ah hah! I’ll look for this.