Hi everyone,

Tried to find some information on other people's experiences with la poste but haven't had any luck.

We just moved to France (Geneva area) and our apartment has a bank of post boxes outside the gate, the post man doesn't ring the apartment when there's a parcel (there's always someone in when he comes around, but we can't see the gate from here).

We received an Avis de passage notice which confused us greatly - out came the French dictionary and we set off to try and find a post office... thankfully we happened upon the local pub and the parcel was due to be delivered there (odd coincidence I thought, as I'd gone in for directions to the post office!).

I tried to put a polite notice on saying "if there's a parcel, please ring the apartment" but no luck, the postman wrote in biro over my note that he couldn't access the building (there's a directory on the wall next to the post box, we'd come straight out if he rang).

Not sure what to do, it doesn't make sense for all of our parcel mail (there can be a lot at Christmas with online shopping as you can imagine!) to go to the local pub, more to the point it's an inconvenience to wait an extra working day every time.

Has anyone managed to get their parcels delivered successfully in a situation like this? My French is quite poor so I don't think there's any other way to communicate than a translated note - but if you have any ideas? Perhaps there's a standard note I can put on the box?

Thanks for reading, any help appreciated.

Welcome to the Forum, Yours is not an uncommon problem but it's a rarity for postman to knock on a door here even more so if they are on van based routes.

Our postman opens our box and puts smaller parcels inside.
Otherwise we collect at the post office.

Yep, same here,

We are 3.5km out of our village and then at the end of a 0.5km chemin but good old postie never lets us down

I think getting your parcels delivered to the local pub is pure genius.

"Honey, I'm just popping out to see if that thingy you ordered has arrived yet. I'll be about an hour, don't wait up".

Our Post lady noticed that one of our upstairs windows was open. She knows the English couple who look after our house when we are not there (they live about 5 miles away) and she went and told them. Not sure that would happen in England

The postman here puts small parcels in the box and usually rings the buzzer if he has something larger to deliver. At the beginning in this apartment, I caught him a few times filling out an Avis de Passage without having rung - but rather than confront him about it, I just gave him an extra generous tip when he came for the Etrennes at Christmas, and ever since he goes out of his way to help even delivering mail from my singing studio (about 500m from my house) to the home address instead. Might be worth a try!

Will the postman always leave an Avis de Passage? We have been waiting for parcels and none have come but we do not appear to have been left an an Avis...
And, should this happen, will it tell us where to collect the parcel from? (Local pub sounds like a brilliant option...)

He should leave an avis de passage if the parcel is traced. If it isn't, he may just leave it on top of the box if it doesn't fit, or he may plan to redeliver it later. Usually the avis will tell you which post office to go and pick up the parcel from and give you a number to ring if you want to rearrange delivery.