One of these times, her letters included her credit card statement containing her card details and a confirmation letter with payment details for a holiday.

She is also still waiting for her bank statement which her bank has confirmed was sent to her a month ago.

The woman, whom we are not identifying for security reasons, has complained to the Royal Mail and has brought the matter to the attention of Councillor Webster.

He said, “I have had several complaints of a similar nature from other constituents in central Broughty Ferry, but this woman’s complaint is particularly serious.

“I too have written to the Royal Mail about this, and it is clearly disgraceful. A full-scale inquiry should be carried out with due urgency.”

The tenement concerned has two stairways — the main one and a second accessed from the rear of the property. The woman lives in a first-floor flat off the rear stairway.

She moved in to the flat in January and experienced some early hiccups with the mail service, but put these down to teething problems with her move.

The service improved but, about a month ago, it began to deteriorate.

Residents’ mail was left lying on the main stairway in the common close despite being clearly marked with names and addresses. She also began to receive mail addressed to her neighbours, again despite the letters being clearly marked.

She has written to the Royal Mail urging them to conduct urgent inquiries into her complaint and to explain why an undelivered bank statement was not either returned to the delivery office or to the sender.

Douglas McBeth of Royal Mail said the woman’s complaint was handed into the Dundee West delivery office yesterday (Thursday) and it had been transferred to the Dundee East office, which covers her area, and where an investigation is under way.

He continued. “The regular postman on that duty has gone off sick and the duty was covered by various members of staff and for a week or so has been covered by a trainee, who is new to the job.

“Apparently this lady lives in a ground floor flat at the rear of the building, and this is not immediately obvious unless you are a regular visitor to the block.”

We told Mr McBeth that the woman lives on the first floor, but he said, “Our understanding is that she lives on the ground floor.”

He continued, “We are still looking into the problem of mail left on the stairs. If mail is mis-delivered we have known customers to put the mail back into some open space where the proper addressees can search for it, but we are still looking into this matter.

“We would like to apologise to the lady for what has happened, and we stress that we do listen to our customers.”

He said the Dundee East office has recently started a new system where all staff are informed of customer complaints, and he hoped that this would reduce the dumber of problems.

He added that customer complaints should be directed to the customer service line on 08457-740740, or in writing to Royal Mail Customer Services, Freepost, RM1 1AA.