Resident issued warning after receiving mysterious package from overseas: 'You don't know what it could be harboring'

Considering the volume of packages we order and receive on a weekly basis, it's alarmingly easy for suspicious or nefarious items to slip through the cracks.

What's happening?

Unsolicited deliveries from China and other overseas regions are arriving in U.S. residents' mailboxes. The recipient often finds themselves faced with deceptively innocuous envelopes containing seeds, usually unlabeled. 

One Reddit user shared a few photographs of their latest unexpected package in the r/gardening subreddit, hoping for an identification and any further advice.

"I'm tempted to just plant and see what it is but not sure that would be the right action," the user confessed. 

Especially given the prevalence of unsolicited mail-delivery advertisements, most residents aren't sufficiently aware of this issue to be concerned when they receive seemingly benign packages at their doorstep. 

Why are these deliveries concerning?

Whether intentionally malicious or not, many or most of these seeds, being international imports, will be invasive in the U.S. Residents who open these packages and plant their contents risk introducing invasive plants into the ecosystem. This could devastate local biodiversity, as the plants could spread uncontrollably and outcompete native species for space and nutrients.

Some users in the Reddit thread went so far as to point out that scams like these may be classified as a "'gentle' form of biological warfare." Depending on the type of seed and its invasive potential, the resulting plant can pose a threat to nearby agriculture, potentially causing a major economic disruption.

While the "biological warfare" claim may or may not be accurate — one Reddit commenter thought it sounded like a "conspiracy theory" — there's no underestimating the damage, intentional or not, that these shipments could cause. 

What's being done about these risky seeds?

The best thing you can do when encountering a suspicious package is report the delivery and hand over the seeds to your local authorities. Do not, under any circumstances, plant seeds that you did not request.

"You don't know what it could be harboring," one user commented. "Can be an invasive species of weed that can destroy your garden ecology."

If you're interested in combating invasive species on your own, you can try rewilding your yard with local native species to bolster your garden's resilience and crowd out invasive plants.

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