Canada and the United States share a land border that stretches more than 8,000 kilometers, and some houses happen to straddle both countries. One such house is the old family home of Paul-Maurice Patenaude, an old man in Quebec. In the past, he did not think it was anything very special, until last year after the outbreak of the new crown pneumonia, only to find that his 200-year-old house turned out to be a “money tree.
According to Yahoo News, Peternord, 82, lives in the town of Dundee in southern Quebec (Dundee), about 100 kilometers southwest of Montreal, at the border of Ontario, Quebec and the U.S. state of New York. The old man’s home, a 200-year-old (older than the country of Canada) wood and stone building, happens to be on the border between the United States and Canada (pictured above). Since the house belongs to two countries, it also has two entrances and two addresses: one in the United States and one in Canada.
The old man said that his house is unique in Canada and the United States. In fact, according to the U.S.-Canada (British) 1842 border treaty, there are so many houses that are exactly at the border line between the two countries and straddle the two countries, but his house is the only place that can be used as a transit point for parcels.
Parcels from the United States are first delivered to the door of the old man’s house in the United States, and then he brings them to the Canadian side for customers to pick up themselves. Immediately afterwards, the customer is taken next door to the Canada Border Services Agency office to be inspected and to pay any customs duties owed. The whole process was legal and there was no fault to be found.
In the past, this parcel transit business did not bring much income to the old man, because southern Quebec is too close to the United States, not to mention the towns on the border, even the South Shore area of Montreal, which is less than an hour’s drive to cross the border, so many people in the United States rented a mailbox, bought what directly south of the border to get on the line.
But the arrival of the new crown pneumonia has changed everything. Last March, the U.S.-Canada border was closed, restricting all non-essential travelers across the border, making it difficult for Canadians to go south to pick up their packages.
As anyone who has ever shopped online knows, the price difference between buying online in Canada and buying online in the U.S. for the same thing is not just a little bit! Even if Canadians shop on the U.S. website, as long as it is a transit, it is necessary to pay the outrageous international shipping costs.
What’s more, many American companies simply do not ship overseas – not even to our neighbors to the north!
So, the old mansion of the old man of Peternoad, became the only choice for many online shoppers.
The old man said that in the past year, his number of customers increased by 1,800, almost three times the usual, and “unstoppable. Every day, an average of 50 packages pass through his house, and he charges $2 to $10 for shipping, depending on the size and weight of the package and his “mood.
His customers are mainly from Quebec and Ontario, with some coming from an hour’s drive away.
While interviewing the old man, the reporter ran into a customer from Montreal’s West Island, Rahans. He said it took him an hour to come to the old man’s house this time to pick up the rugby shoes he ordered for his son in the United States. Even with the cost of gas and the duty he had to pay, he was able to save about $250 Canadian – which was almost worth the price of the product itself.
For others, the benefits of this old home are not only shipping savings, but life-saving. Some of his customers are sick people who need prescription drugs that are not available in Canada and have to buy them from the United States, the old man said.
Although Petenaud made a lot of money during the communist pneumonia outbreak by relying on his old home, he sincerely hopes that the viral pandemic will pass quickly.
He told reporters, “If you one I want the borders to stay closed and then I make more money, that’s wrong. That’s never, ever what I want.” He hopes the border between Canada and the United States will soon reopen so he can resume his otherwise peaceful small-town life. He is getting older and has to walk with a walker. He wants to be able to spend more time enjoying life, including more fishing trips with his son.
But the virus continued to rage, and people needed his services, so he had to keep going.
“This service has satisfied thousands of people, so I said to myself: maybe we’ll do this for a while longer,” Peternoad senior concluded to reporters.
Recent Comments