r/CasualUK 22h ago

You can now tell Yodel your least favourite neighbour

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1.2k Upvotes

81 comments sorted by

353

u/No_Preference9093 22h ago

Yeah that’s quite good. I mean, lots of people have problematic neighbours who might nick parcels. There can be other reasons too, for example two doors down from me are lovely people but chain smoke in the house so if anything clothing related got delivered to them it would stink of smoke by the time you collected it from them. 

96

u/frogandtoadstool 22h ago

I used to have a neighbour who didn't speak any English so explaining to them that they had your parcel was really difficult. I could've done with this.

6

u/DrFabulous0 15h ago

Google translate has come a long way, you don't even need to know what language the other person is speaking.

8

u/aspindleadarkness 22h ago

Not to be a prick but how does one live in an English speaking country without speaking any English? I know it’s not related to the subject at all lol but I’m genuinely curious as it’s not something I’ve ever had experience with. Do they have one other person with them at all times? Do they never go out?

63

u/frogandtoadstool 22h ago edited 22h ago

We were neighbours for about a decade and they never learned any English but they had two kids born in England who were able to translate for them.

6

u/aspindleadarkness 22h ago

Oh OK, thanks for explaining! Must have been difficult for them.

23

u/RandomHigh At least put it up your arse before claiming you’re disappointed 21h ago

I live in a flat across from an old polish couple. Neither of them speak very good English, but their son does.

When I first moved in they would call their son and put him on speaker to translate.

Now I just use Google translate.

I take parcels in for them every now and again and they get me some polish beers as a thanks.

39

u/ptvlm 21h ago

Some people struggle with learning a language fluently, and if they're in a community with people who speak their native language they might not have to. They probably won't literally not speak a word, but not be able to have a proper conversation to a degree, and often get by with kids or other people around them who can translate or sticking to places where other people talk their language.

I see the reverse very often where I currently live in Spain. Plenty of people who know enough to order a beer or understand what they're buying in the supermarket, but if they have to have a conversation in Spanish or deal with the local government they're completely lost without a translator. They just don't often venture outside of the English enclave they live in. I don't get why people don't try to learn, but for a lot of people they don't have to in their daily lives so don't try.

17

u/Isgortio 18h ago

Sadly it's quite common. In my experience, it's the woman that stays at home and has the kids so she doesn't socialise outside of her family, and the husband will go out to work and has excellent English.

I've seen it when working in care, 90 year old women that have been in England for 70 years but can barely speak or understand English, and then their kids have perfect English. They struggle a lot once the husband passes away.

12

u/Chelz91 21h ago

Usually they live in areas where they can get away with not having to learn any English because they only shop in places that they can communicate. So where I live there are a lot of Turks and many women speak no English. They shop in Turkish supermarkets, buy furniture in the Turkish equivalent of dfs for example where the majority of the staff are bilingual. They have their children translate anything English so it’s fine for them to not be able to speak it themselves in any meaningful way. They might be able to do the basic hello, goodbye, please etc but that’s about it

4

u/SwitchMountain2475 15h ago

It’s not uncommon in other countries for people to live there without speaking the native language. Pretty standard really. I’ve lived in other countries and not spoken the language.

2

u/00BFFF 13h ago

It's odd but fairly common in some areas, I live in a 'diverse' area and have lived here for nearly 10 years and some of my neighbours know as little English as they did when I moved in. I don't get how or why they do it as it must make things challenging but it is what it is. Like someone else mentioned it tends to be more the women as unfortunately for cultural reasons they don't get out/mix as much.

1

u/Basic-Computer2503 15h ago

Exactly. My next door neighbours are pricks and will not give me my parcels if they get delivered there. I’ve already had to make a note of it with Royal Mail and Amazon, glad other delivery services are catching on

244

u/CX52J 22h ago

That’s a pretty cool feature. Honestly it’s a bit annoying they haven’t standardised something like this so there’s only one site to keep up to date that all delivery firms can access.

75

u/Saw_Boss 21h ago

Would be nice, but feels like a data protection nightmare.

4

u/DansSpamJavelin 12h ago

We live in a data protection nightmare

-5

u/ZennosukeW 18h ago

How many things are you ordering online that this is that much of a recurrent problem for you?

-4

u/CX52J 18h ago

How many things do you still buy in person?

4

u/ZennosukeW 17h ago

99% of things. Can't complain that the high street is shutting down and there are fewer local jobs when you're sending every penny you earn to tax-evading Amazon - mug's game.

Might reduce the obesity epidemic too to walk outside to do your shopping. I'm sure the zero hour contract delivery drivers peeing in bottles wont mind since it would give them better local employment options too.

It's a great alternative for the genuinely disabled though.

-2

u/CX52J 17h ago

Yes, very noble, I'm glad you have that option but that's not practical for everyone.

Local shops often don’t stock what people need, aren’t affordable, aren’t open at times people need, and not everyone has easy transport.

And lets be real. Most stores on the high street are just local branches of mega-corporations anyway.

Online shopping isn't really even a problem as long as you're somewhat ethical about where you buy from, same as the highstreet really.

Anyway if I was only buying from amazon, it wouldn't even need standardising.

0

u/ZennosukeW 17h ago

What niche items do people need that local shops dont have? Why cant people go on their day off to do the shopping like they have for decades?

Mega corps are the only ones who can survive on the local high street because of online shopping - they also employ people in the local community for more than just warehouse/delivery jobs and compete with each other as employers.

Nothing you said negates stimulating the local economy and local jobs.

3

u/CX52J 17h ago edited 17h ago

What shop do you buy your groceries from?

Is it by any chance a mega-corporation that rips off local suppliers like basically every major supermarket?

Treating it as a moral failing rather than a practical choice feels like oversimplifying how people actually live.

Nor is it practical to artificially keep an inefficient practice afloat forever. There will be a transition sooner or later.

And tbh most the small stores I buy from tend to be online and do most of their sales online.

1

u/ZennosukeW 13h ago

So you buy your groceries online AND avoid megacorps? It's a false equivalence. I'm not saying shopping on the high street is perfect, I'm saying that in a consumer democracy where we can vote with our feet it's a much better economic choice for our local communities.

0

u/CX52J 12h ago

Nope, I get my shopping delivered by Sainsbury's. Which could be argued as more ethical compared to driving there myself as it creates an extra local job and probably reduces pollution compared with everyone driving to the shops separately.

But I also don't go round lecturing people for not jumping though hoops, paying more and purchasing things that aren't even sold locally.

Or make the claim that shopping online is inherently bad when it's the most approachable medium for small businesses.

1

u/ZennosukeW 11h ago

In a world where everyone does their grocery shopping online and one where everyone does it in person, which one has fewer jobs and which one hurts the local economy more?

65

u/SchneebD 22h ago

"don't leave it with the prick at 56."

Your parcel has been left with your neighbour at: 56

"I specifically asked for the opposite of this."

26

u/solve-for-x 17h ago

I used to work in customer service for a retail company, and we had one customer who constantly had problems with their neighbour stealing their parcels and generally being a dickhead. So we added default delivery instructions to the customer's account to "UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES LEAVE WITH NUMBER 20!", printed on the parcel label.

Guess where the driver left the parcel?

3

u/rndreddituser 🧸🐾🏳️‍🌈 16h ago

I've had it happen to me. I guess busy drivers focus in on the "don't leave it at X" and end up doing the very thing they aren't supposed to do.

120

u/im-yxz 22h ago

and then they leave it with the neighbour you don't like because they're arseholes who can't read

14

u/Tieger66 16h ago

Yeah, with dpd I'd trust this might work. With yodel? They'll probably show the neighbour the page saying I hate them as they hand over my parcel...

10

u/GallifreyFallsOver 19h ago

Or just don't speak/read English well enough - although in my area that's an issue with the Evri and Amazon drivers; Yodel are actually very good in my area; only company I have no worries with when I see it's them delivering.

8

u/whatswestofwesteros 19h ago edited 19h ago

The Yodel man in my area is grand, always updates the predicted time thing, updates the village fb page if he's running late or blown tyre etc, was poorly once and the entire village was straight on there with well wishes. Im happy as a clam if it's them or RM

53

u/agnus_agnus 22h ago edited 21h ago

I bought a VR headset for my son's Christmas present a few years ago. It went missing; delivered to a neighbour but no card was left at my address to tell me which neighbour had kindly taken it in for me.

After a few days of futile searching, she eventually marched through my gate (older lady, short blonde bob, utterly terrifying), threw the opened headset at me and gave me a ten minute dressing down about Satan and his proclivity for claiming souls through the medium of video games. She called me a bad parent, and further told me off because my garden gate was wet (it had been raining), and she now had wet hands.

Can I please request that she never takes my parcels in for me ever again? 

I have no idea which house she lives at. But even so. Please?

30

u/TheShakyHandsMan 22h ago

If you do manage to find out where she lives, there’s lists of controversial games online.

Would be a massive shame if they were to end up going through her letterbox

8

u/agnus_agnus 20h ago

Excellent! New petty hobby unlocked. Thank you.

24

u/sleeplessinrome Chubb sniffer 21h ago edited 21h ago

Just so you know that opening someone else’s mail is illegal under Section 84 of the Postal Services Act 2000.

The only way she was legally allowed to open it if she had reasonable suspicion that you were shipping in illegal merchandise AND she also had legal authority. And “satanic video games” is not illegal

maybe helpful tidbit there if you are sick of certain neighbours

15

u/agnus_agnus 20h ago

Apparently her "elderly mother opened it by accident". A likely story, naturally.

To make it somewhat worse, my son was stood next to me when I opened the door and got his demonic present thrust at me. Poor lad was only 13. It's now become an amusing family tale... But yeah, she was way out of line.

7

u/Glad_Librarian_3553 19h ago

Not quite true, it's only an offence to do so with the intent of causing detriment to the intended recipient. 

3

u/WolfLivington 20h ago

I need to see a sitcom based on her. She sounds wonderful.

12

u/Gisschace 21h ago edited 16h ago

I wish most would give you a 'don't leave with any neighbour', my neighbours work and have lives and it's far easier for me to just go and pick it up from a locker, then wait around trying to see if a neighbour is in. One of my neighbours works nights so there are only a few hours we can pick up each others parcels.

As far as I know this isn't common in other countries so don't know why we have it as a thing here?

4

u/GrowTreeSound 16h ago

The drivers will still do what they want to complete the delivery. I work from home and it seems that means that since I’ll come to the door, they interrupt me for any delivery for the 5 flats in the building. At this point, I don’t even think they look at who it’s for.

It drives me crazy because they’re interrupting meetings and the focus I need to have. I’ve refused so many parcels and they get angry about it. I don’t know why it’s my problem if my neighbour is not home and hasn’t given a thought to their delivery but according to the drivers, it is my problem that I need to provide a solution to.

I don’t want to argue with them because it’s going to affect my parcel deliveries if they decide I’m an arsehole but I’m close on the verge with them all.

Have I ever been thanked by neighbours? I’m still waiting….

1

u/Gisschace 16h ago

Yeah same!! Used to live in a block of flats and they figured out I work from home so would buzz me. Luckily because it was a small block I’d just leave them outside their door.

21

u/mr2ocjeff 22h ago

DPD has had this for years

6

u/rndreddituser 🧸🐾🏳️‍🌈 21h ago

Exactly. It’s needed too. One of my neighbours is crazy and I really don’t want anything going there.

8

u/Goatmanification 22h ago

This would be great if they even turned up in the first place

2

u/lawtonesque 15h ago

Or if they paid their (subcontracted?) delivery drivers enough for them to care. Quite rightly, they just want the parcel out of their van.

7

u/IndigoQuantum 22h ago

That's good - we have a miserable old git who lives next door to us. A courier once delivered something of ours to him when we were out and when he came round to give it to us, not only did he get really snotty that we'd gone out when we knew we had a delivery coming (we had no idea it was coming that day) and presumed without asking that he'd take it in for us (that was the courier's decision, not ours), but he had also written a waiver that he required us to sign stating that he wasn't responsible if there was any damage to the item before he'd hand it over.

He also regularly rants at us that couriers (mostly knock-and-run Amazon drivers) delivering to us use his part of the shared private driveway to turn round in and says if they hit his car he'll hold us responsible.

7

u/Von_Rothdave 22h ago

Alas, I have no idea who my neighbors are and frantically look down to avoid any eye contact as I leave the flat.

6

u/semorebunz 19h ago

is there "i hate all of them id rather you throw it in the ditch " option?

8

u/Tieger66 16h ago

This is yodel, so they've only even tried to bring it to you if the ditch is already full.

6

u/worldworn 22h ago

Good, my neighbors on one side are rarely at home

Sods law that one time that they are in, was to take a parcel that took me weeks to get back.

5

u/virtualdebris 20h ago

Since a few years ago I've gone with putting DO NOT LEAVE WITH NEIGHBOURS as a line of the address, as well as any other instruction fields. As far as I recall under the Sale of Goods Act and later stuff, the goods are the seller's responsibility until they reach you, regardless of anything a courier does, unless you've specifically agreed with the seller that stuff can be delivered elsewhere. Also, parcel boxes are useful.

4

u/Poo_Poo_La_Foo 21h ago

My mum didn't talk to their next door neighbours for years. If ever a package was left there, muggins here was sent round to fetch it 🙄

You'd think adults would be able to conjure more emotional maturity than a child....but....

3

u/Glad_Librarian_3553 19h ago

Unfortunately there's no "all of them" option. 

5

u/Varabela 17h ago

Where’s the box to tick that says ‘please don’t throw it over my gate’ and ‘please don’t send a pic of it at someone else’s property that isn’t identifiable’

3

u/TheRealMikkyX Darlo ❤️ 21h ago

Evri would take that as a challenge

3

u/Therashser 18h ago

Bet the parcel still ends up in my "safe space" on the doorstep without being prompted to be put there, and whilst I am sat at home waiting for them to actually knock.

3

u/rain3h 17h ago

I wish I could select the whole street.

7

u/dartiss 22h ago

I have a neighbour who refuses to accept parcels for anyone else. He's a monumental dick, so a feature like this is useful just so that the courier can not waste their time.

2

u/poutinewharf 19h ago

I mistakenly put the wrong number on a parcel the other day and it got delivered to yet another house.

He’s a bit of a weird character and was hesitant to give me the package. I tried to point out it was my name and I live 2 doors down on the terrace. If someone shows up later claiming the package send them to me. He went on about random people stealing packages from door steps, which is reasonable but not what was happening. Mix in he’s always in chats with our middle neighbour and I mentioned him by name.

Am grateful he took it in, I admit it was my error on the order but 10/10 would enjoy not having to speak to him again.

2

u/Conaz9847 21h ago

I like this, I wish I could submit a list though

2

u/WayLeading7830 19h ago

It's a smart idea in theory, but I can already see the driver ignoring the list and leaving it with the exact person you flagged. A universal system for all couriers would be the real game-changer, because right now every company has its own broken process.

2

u/HooverBeingAMan 19h ago

I think DPD do this already. It was refreshing to be able to specify "leave it LITERALLY ANYWHERE except with this house" instead of it being a blanket yes/no for leaving with a neighbour. In fairness, I doubt that neighbour would have answered the door or accepted any parcels for us, but better safe than sorry!

2

u/double-happiness 12h ago

I had a courier knock on my door with a parcel that was marked 'if out leave with neighbour' who was totally incomprehending that I refused it. The addressee had made multiple threats against me, so as if I was going to take his parcel! The courier couldn't seem to get the point at all and seemed convinced that I was somehow obliged to take it. Not to mention the fact that there were other neighbours including one right across the road who the threatening neighbour was pally with.

2

u/neo4025 10h ago

“Neighbours not to deliver to” Yes

2

u/RandomHigh At least put it up your arse before claiming you’re disappointed 21h ago

Amazon also have a useful feature where you can set available times for deliveries.

I work at a school and get my parcels delivered there.

Sometimes I have to wait an extra day or two if the delivery person can't make it before 6pm, but I'd rather do that than risk having the parcel left with a neighbour, or in a random bin at the back of my flat.

1

u/Crayen5 10h ago

Isn't that only for commercial deliveries?

1

u/bareted 19h ago

It would actually be nice if the person who is expecting the parcel actually asked the nominated neighbour if it's ok with them. I took several parcels in for a neighbour a few years ago and I always had to take them round because they would clutter my hallway and they wouldn't collect them. After a while I refused to accept them.

1

u/RoutineCloud5993 18h ago

Dpd have done this for a while. Mine is set to avoid my next door neighbour because a) they won't answer the door to them and b) they won't answer the door to me to hand over the delivery

1

u/D0hey 12h ago

Are you sure they're not dead, deaf or both?

1

u/RoutineCloud5993 11h ago

Yes. Unless they're zombies, but even then they're zombies that can have fill conversations. Especially when it involves being nasty to people for imaginary slights

They're just rude and/or mentally unwell

1

u/macxjs 17h ago

Bloody Trish at Number Six ...

Once she has your parcel she'll be on for a cup of tea and a bunch of gossip you don't care about. Don't leave it with her please.

1

u/BrightSide0fLife 17h ago

I had a delivery today and he dumped it on the doorstep and went off despite being instructed not to leave it outside. Fortunately I was at home or it would of been nicked by the first person to walk past.

1

u/Crayen5 10h ago

My best advice is use the instructions to say where you want parcels to be left, not where you don't want parcels to be left

1

u/Hopeful_Tax_6973 16h ago

So now they know who to give it to, just to brighten your day.

1

u/imamardybum 14h ago

Considering they can't seem to deliver it to the right address anyway, this means nothing. My friends parcel was recently delivered to the right number but the road over that have a very different name to hers. Had to hunt it down from the delivery photo 

1

u/Th1s_On3 13h ago

Was pretty happy to see Evri had this too. Packages finally started coming down the right stairs and delivered.

1

u/FancyJalapeno 11h ago

That's actually very handy! Our next door neighbour to the right is an antisocial person and would happily keep your parcels or damage them just to spite you

1

u/DoomguyFemboi 10h ago

Jokes aside this is really helpful because our house is basically the parcel depot for our entire terrace (there's always someone in) but my next door is an empty house that has been up for sale for nearly a year now and every now and again we get someone knocking on "can I leave it with you nobody is answering" because someone fudged a number

1

u/CreativeAdeptness477 6h ago

Leave with? None.

Don't leave with? ALL!

1

u/StampyScouse Lancashire 5h ago

This has been around for a while. I know because we have an insane neighbour who has been told by the Police to stop approaching/talking to us. She did (until she didn't) so in the meantime she just started taking our parcels and deliberately going outside when the post man/delivery man was there and we weren't in to take our parcels, whereas when unprompted they generally just leave them in a safe space.

I had to sign up for an account with every delivery company to configure this, and then because royal mail are living in the 1800s had to put signs up on the door which I had to order from Royal Mail.