food delivered to the wrong address

[Deb]

After 8pm tonight my ring camera picked up a lady leaving a bag at my front door. From the camera it looked like a door dash or grubhub delivery. She even took a photo after she put the bag down. I was not expecting a delivery. I knew if I left it outside and it was not collected by someone quickly, I would be cleaning up the mess in the morning. Stray dogs and other animals. So about 10 minutes after it was left, I brought it inside. Does not appear to be door dash/grubhub etc. It was in a gift bag and appears to be a rubbermade container. I feel bad, but I still wasn't leaving it outside overnight. Can I dispose of it in the morning? Even if the delivery person or expected recipient figures it out, they wont want to eat food that a stranger has had overnight, right? I did put it in my fridge in case anyone showed up this evening, but it's been over 2 hours.

 

[Dan Murphy]

If not claimed, toss in the morning.

 

[Deb]

If not claimed, toss in the morning.

It's almost 11. At this point I'd be pretty annoyed if someone range my doorbell.

 

[Dan Murphy]

It's almost 11. At this point I'd be pretty annoyed if someone range my doorbell.

Me too. I'm confident nobody will come by, tonight, or tomorrow.

 

[sam_gordon]

Was there not a receipt or store name? If you have no clue, short of posting on a neighborhood social media page (if you have access to one), yup, throw it out.

Heck, its too late for that anyway. Throw it out.

 

[Deb]

Was there not a receipt or store name? If you have no clue, short of posting on a neighborhood social media page (if you have access to one), yup, throw it out.

Heck, its too late for that anyway. Throw it out.

It’s in a gift bag. Like a meal train delivery might be. Or just a gift to a friend. I do feel bad it seems like a lot of food. The bag is tired shut so I just put the whole thing in the fridge.

 

[Deb]

UPDATE. Next door neighbor just left a note at my front door. At this point it can wait till morning, but I guess I’m taking them their food in the morning. Up to them if they trust me at that point

 

[tvguy]

No Ring camera here, but I had a neighbor's groceries misdelivered to my front step. Fortunately the delivery person rang the door bell, and I opened the door before they drove off, but they were in the car and I flagged her down. Not sure how she got it wrong as my address ends in 06 and my next door neighbors ends in 12. Delivery lady was very thankful I caught her.
I had someone show up a couple of weeks ago thinking they were at my neighbor two doors down. Last two digits of his address are 18. And there are huge house numbers on my house and both my neighbors houses, people just don't look I guess.
I guess I might refrigerate it until morning in case someone does come looking for it, but no way that is required. Just toss it. At least in California, if an item is misdelivered, it is considered a gift with no legal requirement to find the rightful recipient.

 

[Kathryn Merteuil]

 

[cabanafrau]

For some reason we were apparently getting grocery deliveries for a neighbor two houses away for a few months. We only found out about it after DH actually went outside to do some yard work and found bags on the porch. He decided to leave them there for a bit to see if anyone showed up to claim them, although he realized he couldn't just leave them there too long because there were some perishables. Within about ten minutes the neighbor showed up to claim them while DH was still out there working on the yard. Apparently the deliveries had been making the same mistake for several months, despite the neighbor making repeated complaints, verifying all information, etc. They always have the correct address, but repeatedly delivered to our porch instead. Neighbor knew to monitor delivery status and just come pick up on our porch. So weird. It did finally stop and we all guess that maybe the store had someone new doing deliveries.

 

[Deb]

The note was just an apology that it was left at my door in error. I took it over to their house this morning but no one answered the door. Since there were two cars in the driveway I left it at their door. Went out to run an errand, came back about and hour later and it was still there. So now I feel bad about leaving it. But the fact that the note didn't ask for it back tells me they probably wouldn't be eating it anyway.

 

[_19disnA]

If some perishable food delivery I didn't order shows up on my door, I would look at the receipt to see if there is any sort of contact information. If there isn't, doubt there is any reasonable way to figure out who it belongs to. I would probably just put it in the trash.

 

[TwoMisfits]

Okay, maybe I'm odd, but if it shows up at my door, I'm walking to both of my next door neighbors and knocking on their doors to see if it's theirs, b/c the odds are, it is. And if it's not theirs, I go to the next 2 and at least do my townhouse street (we have 10 doors on our line, and I'm in the middle). If no one on the line claims it, I bring it in and wait to see if anyone does.

I have good relationships with my neighbors, so maybe that's why this seems like such the obvious answer to me. I mean, large homemade dinner says post-baby birth or post-funeral food to me, and I'm not gonna make things worse by keeping that food from a neighbor...

 

[amcnj]

That’s an odd situation to be in and you did what you could.

We get mail and deliveries for other houses in town with the same address number. One is another street nearby so I assume the carrier just looks at the number and leaves it. The other is a very similar street name, but not in the same neighborhood. Once they had a rug delivered there and called and we had to lug it here.

Another time a fruit and flower type place was trying to deliver a fruit basket to a house across the street at the end of the block. It was due to a death in the household and the sole occupant was now a young woman who didn’t even stay there all the time.

The delivery person obviously didn’t want to have to come back and since I was out front doing yard work, saw me and wanted me to accept it and bring it to that house later. Because it was something perishable, and I didn’t have refrigerator space for this big basket, I declined. I was glad I did as every time I looked for the rest of the weekend, I never saw any activity at that house.