Afton Residents Face Mail Delays and Relocations

Mark Call moved into his home in the Painted Hills Subdivision near Afton on Oct. 1, 2025. He is still waiting for the postal master lock that will allow mail delivery to begin in his neighborhood. The mailbox unit for the subdivision was installed between late October and early November 2025. Call requested the master lock installation in November 2025.

The United States Postal Service approved the mailbox unit and its location. However, the lock remains missing as of November 2026. Call stated that no authorized installer has arrived to complete the work. He noted that the delay has complicated financial transactions and package deliveries for him, his wife, and two neighboring households.

Call said the postal service told him the lock would be installed in early 2026. That date has passed without the work being finished. He has contacted postal officials repeatedly since November 2025. Call said he has offered to arrange the installation himself but was told it must be performed by an authorized postal installer.

In the interim, Call has paid for a post office box located 5.4 miles from his home. The box is a 10-minute drive away. This workaround has created issues with verification for some businesses. Call said he has struggled to do business with Robinhood, a financial services platform, because their systems do not recognize his physical address. He also noted that a shelving unit ordered through Amazon never arrived.

Call provided documentation, including photos and a driver’s license, to prove his residential address. Robinhood did not accept his post office box as a substitute. The company’s system requires the post office to officially recognize his address as genuine. Call said his two neighboring households are in the same situation and have also sought help from the post office without success.

James Boxrud, a USPS spokesperson, said the Afton postmaster is working to install the master lock. The agency apologized for the delay but did not provide a specific installation date. Boxrud encouraged customers with concerns to call 1-800-ASK-USPS or leave an after-hours voicemail at 303-853-6185. He stated that the customer’s concern was brought to their attention through the customer contact process.

Changes in mail service are also affecting residents of Grover. USPS temporarily moved Grover’s post office box and retail services to Afton on May 15, 2026. This move occurred after the property owner in Grover chose not to continue the lease for the building. Residents now collect their mail from cluster boxes located outside the Afton Post Office. Boxrud said these boxes are available around the clock.

Boxrud said USPS is evaluating options and that no decision has been made to permanently close the Grover Post Office. He stated that any permanent change will include community notification and an opportunity for customers to comment. Tom Hepworth of Grover acknowledged that USPS has said the move is temporary. However, he expressed concern based on conversations with local postal officials that Grover may not regain its post office.

For Hepworth, the change requires driving five miles out of his way to check for mail. He said the cluster boxes sit near a back corner of the post office parking lot where a mud puddle often complicates retrieval. Grover’s previous postal operation was housed in a country-store building that Hepworth estimates has stood for about 120 years. The owner previously made accessibility improvements to keep the postal contract but eventually decided to let it go.

Hepworth and his wife own a property that might work as a new postal location. He is considering whether to offer it to USPS. An earlier piece of Grover’s postal history already stands on that property. It is a small white building that served as the post office in Grover about 80 years ago. It previously stood on the corner by the old church but is now used for storage. Hepworth’s grandmother and his wife’s mother both served as postmistresses at that location. Hepworth said the post office has been in their relative families for about 100 years between the two of them.