It took two and a half years for Jonathan and Pherly Dominguez to get their house – now if they could only get their mail.
Four months into living in their new house in Auckland's Flat Bush, the Dominguez family has rarely been receiving their mail because the numbers on the letterboxes opposite them are exactly the same as those on their side of Dishys Road.
It turns out houses on Serpent Rd, a cul-de-sac that runs parallel with theirs, have mailboxes at the back of their property which face on to Dishys Road.
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So any postie or courier delivering mail has the unenviable task of figuring out which set of 7, 9, 11, 13, 15 and 17 is the right one.
"It didn't look like this on the plans," said Jonathan Dominguez.
He is flabbergasted how the discrepancy has managed to slip through cracks of both the developers and those ticking the boxes at the Auckland Council.
Dominguez' wife, Pherly, said that if they were going to stick the mailboxes on the same street then they should have at least put different numbers on them.
The same goes for those on Serpent Roadd, with one person living in one of the affected houses saying they had only received mail twice since moving in.
But according to an Auckland Council spokesperson, the responsibility for the letterboxes and where they are displayed falls at the feet of developers DDL Homes Central Ltd.
"Mailbox placement does not require sign off from the council. However, we do expect developers to adhere to our guidance," she said.
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However, DDL was put into liquidation in October last year, and Calibre Partners, the firm handling the insolvency, has yet to reply to requests for comment.
The couple's new build has been plagued by delays – COVID-19, a digger smashing their nearly-finished house to pieces and their developer going into liquidation last year.
They finally moved into their three-bedroom townhouse in December last year.
In June 2021 the Dominguez family were only days away from moving into their new home when a mystery vandal crept on to the building site, started up a digger and went on a destructive rampage.
The vandal tore up numerous concrete foundations and smashed the Dominguez' home so badly it had to be demolished and rebuilt.
The mystery digger driver is yet to be caught.
This story has been reproduced with permission from Stuff.co.nz.
