05/27/2026
The last few weeks of my life have been nothing short of a rollercoaster of stress & anxiety. I realize there’s been radio silence on my end the last couple of weeks, and unfortunately there is a reason why. The other week, while I was at work my apartment complex’s mailroom was broken into. My personal mail (along with everyone else’s) was stolen, including all packages left in the drop-off/outgoing mail area. This includes the Arbiter pressing.
The pressing size had been reduced to 125 copies due to lower than expected sales, so instead of arriving on a pallet they arrived as 4 separate parcels. And because it wasn’t shipped as freight, I was given the option to have the packages delivered without signing, which I opted for.
As some of you know, I work as a RN. I work nights, which means I’m often sleeping during the day. I typically sleep up until I absolutely have to wake up to get ready for work, and the packages arrived on a day I was in between shifts. I decided it would be safe to keep them in the mail room overnight so that I could bring them in on my way back home from work.
In hindsight, it seems silly that I thought it would be okay to keep them there overnight, but up until then my complex hadn’t had any issues with mail being stolen for as long as I’ve lived here.
My complex has already filed a police report, and I’ve filed my own separate report as well. I’ve been given a case number & the contact information for an investigator; I will periodically be going live and/or posting reels of myself calling & asking for updates. In the meantime, I’ve already submitted payment for another round of records to be made in the interim. Best case scenario, the records are found, I can ship them ASAP, and I end up with the original pressing amount intended. Worst case scenario, the records are never found and we have to wait for these new ones to come in.
To be frank, this is a post I’ve been dreading to make. There’s a multitude of reasons why, but biggest of which is letting you all down. As a small business, there’s only so much you can prepare for. Unfortunately, this wasn’t something I thought would happen to me.
The resulting stress, anxiety, and financial burden this has placed on me has been hard to deal with along with what I have going on in my personal life, and has me rethinking the purpose of this label. I’ve decided that once these last 3 preorders come in, I’ll be taking a nice long hiatus. I don’t know if I’ll be going away forever, but I need time to recalibrate. As such, any projects I’ve been working on will be placed on the back burner for now.
Here are some questions I expect you may have:
1) So, what does this all mean for my order?
Nothing. As previously stated, I’ve already submitted payment for the repressing. All you have to do is wait a little longer.
2) What if I don’t want to wait?
That’s okay! REFUNDS ARE AVAILABLE UPON REQUEST. Just send me an email with the subject line “Arbiter Refund - Order # ###” and your refund will be processed.
I’m acutely aware of how long you’ve already been waiting; the band & I are working as quickly as we possibly can to bring you these records. For now, all I can offer is my deepest apologies. I regret having to disappoint you like this, and I promise to bring you any update as soon as I have them.
