Steamboat Springs — A contracted cleaner that no-showed on Dec. 23 is to blame for piles of garbage and old mail that collected at the Steamboat Springs Post Office over the last few weeks, a postal service spokesperson said Thursday.

As recently as Wednesday night, trash and recycling from containers in the eastern side of the Lincoln Avenue post office were overflowing onto the ground, and tile floors were dirty where customers had tracked in debris over the last few weeks.

“As a customer, I was just appalled and disappointed,” said Kathi Meyer, a Steamboat Springs resident who gets her mail in the eastern portion of the post office. “I almost feel like going in and cleaning it up myself.”

Meyer said it isn’t the first time she noticed overflowing trash at the post office, and remembers a similar situation a couple of months ago.

“Somebody is going to slip and fall,” Meyer said.

When she complained about the building’s cleanliness, Meyer said she was asked to lodge a complaint on the post office website.

United States Postal Service spokesperson David Rupert said Thursday that a contracted cleaner didn’t show up to work on Dec. 23, and the postal service was unable to find a replacement during the holidays.

“It’s a tough time of year to find a replacement,” said Rupert, who works out of Denver. “Unfortunately, it got to having an unpresentable image, and we apologize for that.”

Rupert said he was told that a new cleaner had been found, and by late Thursday morning, the post office was cleaned.

“They’ve got someone who will be doing the cleaning now,” he said.

When asked whether it would have been possible for post office employees in Steamboat Springs to pick up cleaning duties after losing the cleaning person, Rupert said the employees’ chief responsibility is the mail.

“Our first priority is the mail,” Rupert said. “It’s a high traffic place, and (the cleaning) takes a lot of work. It was a bad time to lose a key person.”

To reach Teresa Ristow, call 970-871-4206, email tristow@SteamboatToday.com or follow her on Twitter @TeresaRistow