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For five weeks, he waited for the check to arrive in his mailbox. It finally came Saturday, two days after he had it canceled.

“The government doesn’t know how to run anything,� Eirich, 73, said in an interview Wednesday. “This is not service at all. It should not take a week, even, to deliver that mail.�

Eirich’s complaint about staggeringly slow mail delivery by the U.S. Postal Service has joined a growing chorus across the St. Louis area. Residents have complained about weekslong delays of magazines, checks, mailers and more.

This week, seven members of Missouri’s congressional delegation sent a letter to the Inspector General of the U.S. Postal Service about “significant mail delivery disruptions� in the St. Louis area.

The lawmakers are asking for an audit of the agency in the St. Louis area and an outline explaining how mail delivery will improve.

The audit, they said, should cover postal facilities and distribution centers in St. Louis County, St. Charles County and the city of St. Louis.

The letter was signed by U.S. Sens. Josh Hawley and Eric Schmitt and U.S. Reps. Ann Wagner, Robert Onder, Jason Smith, Sam Graves and Eric Burlison. The lawmakers, all Republicans, asked the inspector general for a reply by April 15.

Many in the St. Louis area experience “persistent delays,� the letter said, “while some go extended periods without receiving any mail at all.�

Packages are shuffled between St. Louis area post offices for weeks, the lawmakers alleged. Customers’ mailed payments are late. One resident got mail on only 10 days so far this year.

“This is simply unacceptable,� the seven lawmakers said in the letter. “Others have struggled to access critical prescription medications and Social Security checks, creating unnecessary hardships.�

Hawley asked for an audit a year ago. The postal agency chose instead to audit a more broad region, the Kansas-Missouri postal district, with emphasis on the Kansas City area. That audit’s released in September included: Employees scanned packages improperly. Master keys or “arrow keys� weren’t secured properly. Employees had a high number of unscheduled absences.

But the seven members of the congressional delegation who signed Tuesday’s letter said the Kansas City-area audit, “did not specifically address the challenges faced by residents in the St. Louis area. Since that time, mail service in the region has not improved.�

They added, “Identifying and addressing the root causes of these service failures is critical to restoring trust in USPS operations in the region.�

The last time the Office of Inspector General for the U.S. Postal Service conducted an audit here was in 2022 when it examined four St. Louis-area post offices, according to Tara Linne, a spokesperson for the Inspector General’s office. The delivery delays at one of four stations but package scanning issues at all four, among other problems.

The Post-Dispatch wrote about complaints of missing mail in January. Residents across the St. Louis area reported empty mailboxes, seldom-seen letter carriers and other issues with mail delivery after a storm dumped as much as a foot of snow and ice on the region.

Tara Jarrett, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Post Office, said at the time that snow and ice made deliveries difficult.

But for many, the troubles haven’t improved even as the weather has.

On Monday, Eirich, the Valley Park man, shared his complaints about mail delivery on Next Door, a neighborhood-focused social media site. Within two days, more than 210 people had chimed in on his post.

Some said the decline has been happening for years and that competitors like Fed Ex and UPS aren’t always better. ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵ were pretty close to split about whether privatizing the U.S. Postal Service would help.

A West County woman said she changed to paying most bills online after she was hit with late fees when checks mailed in plenty of time didn’t arrive promptly. A High Ridge man got his license renewal notice in the mail after his license had expired. A Ballwin woman mailed a St. Patrick’s Day card to a friend March 11, but the friend still hadn’t gotten it nearly three weeks later.

Michael Sanders, of Kirkwood, said that some days he gets no mail at all.

“Every once in awhile,� Sanders, 73, said in an interview, “something will come in from a local address that was mailed weeks ago. It’s inconsistent, I would have to say.�