Street Bursting With Babies Leaves Its Stamp on Mail Carriers

It must be contagious.

Earlier this week, when news emerged of a veritable baby boom on a single short block of Jones Street in midtown Ventura, local postal workers decided to check their ranks to see who carried the route.

“We thought it must be the resident Casanova’s street,” said postal clerk Veronica Hernandez.

But their hasty in-house investigation yielded surprising results: Two consecutive postal carriers on the Jones Street route have turned up pregnant.

Postal carrier Tammy Houseman, who carried the Jones Street route until about eight months ago, has a 6-month-old.

Her replacement, Amanda Arroyo, is now eight months pregnant; her baby is due July 25.

“We better check UPS and FedEx on that street,” Hernandez said.

Meanwhile, of 22 families on the block, there are six newborns under 6 months old, with another due in September.

Now Houseman is back on Jones Street again. And hoping she doesn’t get pregnant again, Hernandez said. “All the carriers are saying, ‘I don’t want to carry that route,’ ” Hernandez added.

Arroyo, in postal uniform (maternity of course) but off the route because she only has a few weeks until she delivers her baby, is already distressed about returning to Jones Street in the future.

“It’s the street,” Arroyo said. “I’ll be back on it. But I don’t know if I want it.”