FOX 29 Investigates: Strange Tire Tracks Near Suburban Home

It was in some freshly fallen February snow that Amethyst Bush first found unexpected tire tracks outside her home.

"Were you scared? Were you fearful?" asked FOX 29 Investigates' Jeff Cole.

"I was nervous, absolutely … because who expects that?" Amethyst said.

The Bensalem Township woman wanted to know who was riding off of the stone driveway that leads to her cedar-shingled cottage in the midst of an old Methodist church retreat camp.

There were deep, muddy ruts in the lawn.

"If you look at the ruts the way they are right here, you can see it was done at least four times, if you look at the different angles of them," she said.

More tracks led onto walkways.

"Like, this is the driveway, so I have tire tracks of them making a K-turn, a couple wiggles like all the way up over my walk, and back and forth," she said. "And then, if you look at the flower bed, you can see tire tracks up and over and onto the sidewalk. And now I have rocks that are not where they should be. They're jutting up. They're not right."

Something else she noticed: "The tire tracks were close together, so I thought maybe that it was a quad, because, you know, the tires are closer than a car."

"And you had never seen anything like that here before?" Cole asked.

"No. And if somebody was lost, they wouldn't drive that far into my driveway," Amethyst said.

Police came out to take a look but had the same best guess she did – probably some kids.

The local sheet-metal worker decided to put trail cameras out around her Central Avenue home.

Who did they show unfazed by "neither snow nor rain?" A U.S. Postal Service mail carrier and his truck, parked right on her stone walk.

"And what did you think when you saw these pictures?" Cole asked.

"It made me very angry 'cause … I pride myself on buying my own house, and here's somebody just damaging the property," she said. "It's very disrespectful."

Amethyst says she called the Langhorne Post Office to complain, mentioning her photographic proof when they didn't believe her.

After no return call, she phoned again later that week. This time, someone did come out to look around and also turned up on her trail cams.

Still, she got no call back.

"It's very aggravating," she said.

That's when she asked FOX 29 Investigates for help.

"Maybe they were just hoping that I was just going to go away," she said.

The postal service declined an on-camera interview, but a spokesman told us: "Under limited circumstances, a carrier may use a customer's driveway, when it is safe to do so, to deliver a large parcel or number of parcels to the door."

Doesn't look like that was the case here, when the mail carrier sips from a beverage can while dropping off a few letters.

The postal service went on to say, "At no time should a carrier drive over or onto a customer's lawn or landscaping stones."

And the USPS spokesman told FOX 29 Investigates, "Local management has directed employees not to access this customer's driveway under any circumstances."

That's more than Amethyst was even asking for.

"It's OK if they want to use the driveway, just don't drive on the lawn?" Cole asked.

"Stay on the driveway, that's all," Amethyst said.

She also hopes they can deliver a few dollars to help fix up her yard.

"Please, yes, do the right thing!" she said.

We asked the postal service if we could talk to the carrier. It said no and would not tell us his name.

As for the repairs, a spokesman says a claims rep is looking into it.

Amethyst has since installed $1,500 worth of cameras and a security system.

And we watched as a different carrier parked on the street and walked the mail up to her house, Cole reported.