Kate Hackett
I’ve lived in my current abode for over ten years — hang on, I’ll repeat myself: over ten years.
I still get mail for the woman I bought it from, excuse me, one more time, over ten years ago. It drives me absolutely bonkers, so I can’t imagine what it’s like to get PHONE CALLS from strangers who knew the previous owner.
Poor u/agirlandamoose has been dealing with just that in her house that she bought with her boyfriend and has reached her breaking point. She wanted to know if she was a jerk for putting her foot down — let’s find out if she is.
OP explains that she and her BF bought their home in January of last year and kept in touch with the prior owner to hand off things like packages or whatnot.
My BF and I bought our first home from an elderly couple in January of 2022. Initially, I kept in contact with one of them (lets call her Barb) in the event that we might receive some of their mail or something. Contact was very occasional and was always something along the lines of asking if I received a package of hers or that she wanted to mail us a key that she found that went to the lock on our shed.
Months after they moved in, OP received some packages for the old owner, who was no longer answering her phone.
Months after we moved in, around early October, we received some dining chairs in a box addressed to Barb. A day or two later, a repeat of the exact same shipment arrived. I attempted to contact Barb but my calls would not go through.
The problem got so bad that OP actually had an entire garage full of deliveries that weren’t for her!
A few weeks later, I came home from work and my BF (who frequently gets home before me) told me that he was starting to feel guilty about the situation and asked me to follow him to our garage. Apparently, packages containing furniture and decor had been coming regularly for weeks and we now had a garage full of boxes that were not addressed to us. My boyfriend had been storing the boxes and assuming the shipments would stop, but they continued.
So they kept trying to hunt down the prior owner. When they finally got in touch with her, the woman said none of those items were things she purchased!
We doubled down and try harder to contact Barb with the help of other neighbors. We finally got in touch with her and she explained that she had lost her phone and that was why I was unable to contact her for some time. I explained the situation to her, and she gave me permission to open some of the items so I could describe them to her. She then told me that she had not ordered any of the items.
OP tried to help the old owner by raising a concern of fraud, but the purchases were legit. Barb wanted to figure out a time to come by to get the packages.
It turns out that, prior to moving, Barb had a friend of hers help her order furniture for her new home as she can’t see well and was having trouble navigating the furniture website. This friend used her own computer to order Barb’s things as a favor. I immediately became concerned that Barb was being robbed, and I urged her to contact her bank first and then her friend second.
Barb let me know days later that the charges were not fraudulent, it was a simple case of forgetting to change the shipping address, and the friend wanted to set up a time to come pick up her furniture from me. I explained that myself and my BF work a lot and I wanted to set up a time when I wouldn’t be home alone. I don’t know this person and I couldn’t lift half of the furniture by myself to move it anyway.
When OP didn’t accommodate quickly, the owner and her friend started to call frequently to set something up. OP and her BF tried to set a time, but no one responded to her, so OP got rid of the furniture.
I began receiving calls from Barb and her friend day and night asking me to find the time to let them collect the items. After a few weeks, my BF and I finally had a weekend off together. I messaged both Barb and her friend with a day and time and received no reply from either person. By the first of the year, still nothing. I began receiving calls again at the end of January, after we had already gotten rid of most of the items since we had not heard back. I have not been answering the calls. It has been over a year that we have lived here, and several months since we received the furniture. Am I the asshole here?
OP added an edit saying that she accepted a jerk judgment for getting rid of things that cost real money.
Edit: I was not home when any of the items were delivered, I work long hours. I waited 3 months prior to getting rid of the stuff with no contact from Barb or her non-elderly friend. I did not have an address for either individual. The much younger friend is the actual owner and orderer of the items, not the elderly woman. She failed to change the shipping address after ordering items of her own months after she helped Barb order furniture. The elderly woman was not out any money because of this, but her friend is and I understand that makes me an asshole. Additionally, I did not sell any of the items. I gave some away and threw away others.
But guys… I don’t know. It’s not OP’s mistake to fix. She tried.
Reddit was mostly concerned with the potential legality of tossing the items.
“NTA – you’ve been more than understanding, and tried to get them their packages, but over a year later this isn’t your problem. Laws differ by location but they typically require that you make a reasonable effort to get the package to the correct recipient. You’ve satisfied that,” noted one user.
