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Get Marty: Nuns Miss Months Of Mail After Address Change

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SQUIRREL HILL (KDKA) -- Some Pittsburgh-area nuns weren't getting their mail for five months -- all because of their address -- and when they said the post office couldn't help them, they decided to Get Marty.

The mundane chore of grabbing mail may be best described as a bit of a postal miracle in the Squirrel Hill home of Catholic nuns Sister Bonnie Heh and Sister Georgine Scarpino.

The sisters haven't been able to get mail delivered to their home since October, and that's problematic.

"It's not trivial stuff. It's the bills," Scarpino said. "Two different bills were late being paid because we were tracking down where they were. That's very frustrating. We have such a good record with these companies. They wonder what happened to us, you know."

Their problem started in the home they used to live in. When they moved, they asked the post office to forward their mail to the new address. The post office told them, "We don't do that."

The post office said because the house they used to live in used to be a family business, they wouldn't forward their mail to a private address.

That's when the phone calls and emails to the post office began. The sisters told them they lived in a residential home that was someone else's family business on the first floor years ago.

The sisters say they contacted the postal service about 12 times over more than four months, and it was never resolved. But the post office did end up sending them something...

"They sent me a survey, asking was I satisfied with the results? And I said, 'No,'" Heh said.

That's when the sisters sent KDKA's Marty Griffin an email out of frustration:

"We are three Sisters of Mercy. We moved on Oct. 17 but have not received any forwarded mail to date. Many calls to the post office brought no results. With hope for your help and a solution to this problem, we await your response."

"It was so strange. I mean, what kind of a policy is that? It doesn't make any sense," Scarpino said.

Turns out, it didn't make much sense to the postal service.

KDKA reached out, and they addressed the problem immediately, saying, "There used to be a business there [at the sisters' former home] years ago. We have recoded the address as a residence now and mail will be forwarded. We will be checking the customers' mail daily to ensure that is in fact happening."

Finally, they've got mail.

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