This Greater Cincinnati village has gone a year without a post office

NEVILLE, Ohio (WXIX) - A village in Clermont County has been without a post office for more than a year after their branch closed and residents are now having problems just getting their mail.

“It’s sad that our postal service has come to this,” Cecil Collins, former mayor of Neville, said Wednesday. “It should be a guarantee for our country, and it’s not there.”

A note from the post office operations manager dated Nov. 5, 2021, says the facility had multiple serious health and safety issues that the district safety office deemed unsafe.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration shut down the post office two days prior on Nov. 3.

The building is leased and OSHA said at the time the building would be closed until repairs could be made.

“They had some residents that were living upstairs, and they had some dogs and cats from what we understand, and there was urine and stuff coming through the ceilings,” said Jr. Riggs, former vice mayor.

Provisional mail pickup for Neville residents was handled afterward at the post office in Felicity, a 15-minute drive away.

“It makes it harder, especially for the older folks that don’t travel,” Collins said. “They let us bring them their mail so they don’t have to come out in bad weather.”

Riggs says it’s hard to pay bills.

“We try to make it up there on Saturday when we’re off to get our bills, but, you know, sometimes we’re late, sometimes we’re not. If you ain’t got the bill, you can’t pay.”

Riggs and Collins say USPS mailboxes are offered on the street as an alternative, but residents that use them must change their Neville zip code to a Felicity zip code. If everyone follows suit, Neville would no longer be a village.

“You cannot undo that,” Collins said. “Once it’s gone, it’s gone.”

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