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.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

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...

I would probably do this with the houses in my curve of the cul-de-sac though I wouldn't go knocking on doors on the straight part or the other cul-de-sac on our street as we've not had contact at all with those neighbors and it's unlikely to mess up the houses that way. It wouldn't be the first time the neighbors in the curve of our cul-de-sac had something of ours delivered to their house although that has been Amazon or Walmart.

I do understand the hesitancy because it wasn't a normal delivery so you're left with little to no clues as to whom it may belong to. Honestly it's not uncommon for people on Nextdoor or eNeighbors for someone to post a pic of the porch where their package was delivered to in hopes that someone would recognize it.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

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.

Personally I wouldn't worry about whether the food was or wasn't eaten. IMO it's more about the general idea of something being delivered to the rightful person. I guess around here I wouldn't be as concerned about animals eating something left by a front door as much as you seem to describe. Sure we have stray animals (normally cats) but with all the other wildlife I haven't heard of a rash of food by a front door being rifled through overnight but you might live in an area where that is more of a concern.

 

[cabanafrau]

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...

In our case we actually knew it was not a delivery for the homes on either side of us because we know both neighbors well enough to be sure it wasn't theirs without even asking. We actually expected it belonged to a house on one of the other blocks around us with the same house number as ours because we've had times where we've received mail for those homes over the years and times where they've received our mail. That's just annoying all around also.

We know the neighbor two doors away who this delivery ultimately belonged to as well, but there wasn't anything making us think the delivery was theirs or we just would have taken it over and asked. Like I said, we had been unaware there had already been multiple mistaken deliveries to our porch until he told DH. He couldn't explain it either and was very frustrated. DH told him if we got anymore we would bring them over, but he said don't worry he just watches for the delivery status updates and puts his shoes on because he knows where it will be. He was just glad he figured out where they were delivering and it wasn't far. Hopefully the store was not charging for the delivery fees at least. I know I'd be a bit irate.

 

[Deb]

I swear sometimes they do it on purpose. A few years back I was waiting on fedex with my laptop. I heard something outside and checked my camera just in time to see the fedex truck back out of my driveway. That's right, the driver had pulled into my driveway, walked across the grass and delivered my laptop to my neighbor. I was home so it's not that they needed a signature and I wasn't there.
And then there are the multiple times one of the delivery services (packages not food) failed to deliver on the promised date claiming the business was closed. The business in question was a hotel with a 24 hour front desk.