Paula Black realized what a sad state her local Steamboat Springs post office was in when she started seeing junk mail piles avalanching to the floor from tables in the lobby. She noticed cobwebs draping corners, dust coating everything, and parts hanging off old heaters.

So, she called on some friends to meet her at the post office with brooms, dust rags and trash bags last Saturday afternoon when the counter was closed and mailbox traffic minimal. They spiffed up the lobby so that it no longer looked like a place that had been without custodial services for months.

“I took a teeny, tiny nibble at solving one of the problems here, but I think it is a shame that I am cleaning a federal building for free,” said Black, a retiree who has lived in Steamboat Springs for half a century and never seen the town’s post office in such a state. She has now organized a twice-weekly volunteer cleaning crew to tackle the mess until the U.S. Postal Service can hire someone to do it.

If only such a crew could as easily tackle the mountains of postal woes that have continued to pile up faster than discarded mail and undelivered parcels in post offices across Colorado.

Read more at ColoradoSun.com.