Is it a little annoying when a neighbor’s package gets delivered to you by mistake?

The answer is yes.

But does that give you the right to wait two weeks to get it to the correct recipient – and then get frustrated when they aren’t grateful enough?

That’s the scenario in this story from Reddit.

AITA For not returning a mistakenly delivered package sooner

I live in a HOA that is mostly duplexes and townhomes. Pretty much every place looks the same.

Due to each place having basically no identifiable differences, it’s not uncommon for packages or mail to get delivered to the wrong place by mistake.

It doesn’t help that the names of the streets are very similar, think Oakview Lane and Oakview Road, but with the same address numbers.

Usually it’s just one or 2 houses over and it’s not a big deal, these things happen.

Inconvenient, but not the end of the world. Or so you would think.

Anyway, I got a package on my doorstep a few weeks ago that wasn’t addressed to me. The house number was the same, but it was for a completely different street.

I took it inside with the full intention of bringing it over to the right address, but I got distracted and forgot about it.

I was very busy with work at the time and stressed over some family issues and it just wasn’t at the front of my brain to think about it.

Some time passed. And then A LOT of time passed.

It wasn’t until over a week later that I noticed the package still sitting in the corner of my dining room and remembered I hadn’t done anything about it yet.

So I walked it a few streets over and brought it to the rightful owner. I was going to just leave it on the doorstep, but the guy was outside when I walked up.

I said hello and told him that a package of his was mistakenly delivered to my house.

He looked at it and said he’s been looking for this for almost 2 weeks.

He clearly needed the items inside, but the author is still unconcerned.

I told him that I kind of forgot I had it and apologized for not getting it over sooner.

He said he had sent out multiple HOA-wide emails about it, but I told him I never read those things so I never saw it.

He started walking away to put the package inside and I was just kind of standing there like, this guy isn’t even going to thank me for bringing his package back?

So he decides to get smart about it.

So I said “You’re welcome by the way.” Kind of loudly.

You can imagine how the neighbor is going to react.

He spun around on his heels and said, “You expect a thank you for holding onto my package for over a week? What if this had been medicine, or something important?”

And the author just can’t seem to let it go.

I asked him if it was medicine or something important and he told me that it was none of my business what it was and told me to get out of there.

I think he should be more grateful that I even brought it over to him in the first place. It wasn’t my fault it got delivered to the wrong place.

He definitely didn’t need to be so rude about it, all I wanted was a thank you.

Why did the author need that thank you so much?

I told a friend about it and she asked why I didn’t bring it over sooner. I told her about everything I was dealing with and that I just forgot about it.

She said that maybe a day or two could be excused by that, but not remembering for over a week made me an *******.

I don’t think I did anything wrong and I definitely think the other guy was a jerk for how he reacted to me bringing his package back.

Let’s see what the commenters of Reddit have to say about this one.

It doesn’t matter whether or not he was grateful, the author messed up by not getting it to him sooner.

The original issue is no big deal. How the author responded is where the problem lies.

The entitlement is pretty cringey, according to this comment.

Another commenter feels like the proper response was oh-so-close.

Why did he think he deserved anymore than he got, asks this comment?

There are serious consequences for holding other people’s mail, accidental or not, says this commenter.

This author thinks his return to sender should have been a special delivery!

Responsibilities in this modern world are complicated.

If you liked this post, check out this story about an employee who got revenge on a co-worker who kept grading their work suspiciously low.