Neighbor's dog stops mail delivery
Copyright © 2002 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc.
WATERVILLE — Melissa Hurley thinks it unfair that the U.S. Postal Service will not deliver mail to her Summer Street home because of a dog that lives next door.
Staff photo by DAVID LEAMINGSummer Street resident Melissa Hurley meets her neighbor, Richard Congdon, and his dog, Baskerville, at Congdon's house recently. The U.S. Postal Service has stopped delivering Hurley's mail because the mail carrier feels threatened by the dog. Hurley and Congdon say the dog is harmless, and they are being unfairly targeted. click to enlarge
Both she and the dog's owner, Richard Congdon, say the animal is harmless, but the mail carrier apparently feels otherwise.
"We certainly empathize with Ms. Hurley's situation," said Leanne Payeur, communications specialist with the U.S. Postal Service. "Our goal is to deliver excellent service to all of our customers. We do not ask that that come at the risk of the personal safety of carriers." The problem started two months ago when Hurley and her husband, Brian, a Wal-Mart manager, said mail delivery to their house stopped abruptly. When Melissa Hurley contacted postal officials, they told her that in order to receive her mail, she must pick it up at the local post office, she said.
Melissa Hurley, who has a home business and is the mother of a toddler and an infant, said traveling to the post office every day is difficult.
"I don't want to look like the bad guy — I just want to get my mail," she said.
Payeur said the post office ultimately offered to place a rural box for the Hurleys at the curbside, but Hurley rejected the offer because she feels her mail will not be secure in a box at the end of her long driveway, near the road, obscured by a high hedge, in a neighborhood where crimes are frequently committed.
Others in the neighborhood receive the mail at their houses, and she thinks she should, also.
Melissa Hurley had never met her neighbor, Richard Congdon — the dog owner — until recently, when she and a reporter knocked on his door. Congdon's large, grayish-black Irish wolfhound, Baskerville, barked loudly from inside the house.
When Congdon, 76, opened the door, the 160-pound, 7-year-old dog wiggled and panted and played with his guests.
"He's a sweet, loving dog and he's wonderful with other dogs," Congdon said later. "My granddaughter has a puppy and he's wonderful with it."
Congdon said police came to his house because of complaints about his dog, but officers found the animal to be harmless.
"They got to be good friends, Baskerville and the policemen," he said.
Chief Deputy Joseph P. Massey said Thursday that Officer Thomas Rowe went to Congdon's house Sept. 18 to follow up on a complaint by the post office and initially was intimidated by the dog's size, but found it to be friendly.
"The dog is a very easy-going, non aggressive, nonviolent dog," Massey said. "The dog just laid right down at his (Rowe's) feet."
Waterville's animal control officer, Patrick Faucher, also visited Congdon at his house, which is surrounded by a tall hedge, inside of which the dog is sometimes tethered.
Congdon agreed to shorten the tether rope and install a small fence near a hedge opening, so the closest the dog could get to the edge of the hedge is eight feet, Faucher said. He said he is satisfied that the measures put in place are more than adequate.
"I've never had a report of that dog biting anyone..." Faucher said. "We have had other situations in town that are much worse than that and they still deliver the mail."
Congdon studied medicine at Harvard, taught at Lawrenceville School in New Jersey, and and later was director of a university press in DeKalb, Ill. He said he moved to Waterville two years ago after living briefly in Oakland, where his mail carrier got along famously with his dog.
Congdon said he has suffered three strokes, is legally blind and hard of hearing, and relies on Baskerville to let him know when there is someone at the door, or if something is wrong.
Congdon said his own mail is delivered to a relative's home elsewhere in the city and he does not mind because he no longer handles it. But he thinks it unfair that mail is delivered to all of his and Hurley's neighbors, but not to her.
Melissa Hurley said a carrier covering nearby Veteran Court delivers mail to a house located about 30 feet from (her) Hurley's door, where Hurley's mail formerly was delivered. Another family on Veteran Court has three pit bull terriers, and mail is delivered there also, she said.
Melissa Hurley, who has two grandparents who are are postmasters, said she has contacted a representative at U.S. Sen. Susan M. Collins' office to see if she can help.
"She's doing everything she can for us," Hurley said.
Payeur, the U.S. Postal Service spokeswoman, said she understood Congdon's dog had run free in the past. Many dogs feel threatened by people in uniform and act differently around them, she said.
"If a neighboring property is impacted by that unsafe situation, he (the carrier) is not obligated to deliver to those delivery addresses," she said.
She said safety is of paramount concern in the postal service. Several mail carriers around the state have suffered dog bites, been hospitalized and not been able to return to work because of permanent disfigurement, she said.
"Those injuries can be life-threatening for some of these individuals," she said.
Amy Calder — 861-9247 acalder@centralmaine.com