small thing advice is needed.

[Ljt09863]

the problem isn't so much mine, its my fiancees,Peter.

currently, we live in the upstairs apartment of his parents house. its nice. two bedrooms, kitchen, one bathroom, living room. small, but good for me andhim. since we live at the same address of his parents, we all share a mailbox. it isn't hard to tell mail apart.

but, Peters mother has this habit of opening his mail. its only bills,cause thats all he gets. but its not just opening it. she takes it to her room in the basement, and doesn't let peter know his bills are there.

there have been times he thought he had a motorcycle bill, and looked all over for it, and found it on his mothers desk, the day after it was due. usually, he finds it the day before, but it has happened that he won't get ituntil the day after. and then his mom complains about it being late.

i could understand a mother opening her childs mail if child was really young, ut ot 25years old! i think at that point, its illegal.

Peter has asked her to stop, has yelled at her to stop, has gotten into arguements for her to stop, and she won't stop. i think its the whole,"im his mother, i can look at his mail" thing. but its like, im his fiancee and carrying his child, and i would never open his mail unless he asked me to.

Peters dad, if he gets the mail, will put our mail upstairs, and not let Peters mom get it. but if she gets the mail.....his bills are downstairs. i actually went downstairs today, and saw that there was mail on our steps to our apartment,....his were opened again.

it frustrates me, cause i think she needs to leave his mail alone. but its not getting through to her.....

[Ryu]

my parents open my mail as well, not just bills but whatever it is
its almost always bills but still
its really annoying, lemme know if you figure out how to stop it :P

[Rapscallion]

It's a felony, as far as I understand it. Suggest to the police that a quick chat may be beneficial.

Rapscallion

[CanadaGirl]

Let her know that she can either leave his bills where he can get them himself, or, when she opens them to not forget to pay them too! :D

[PuckishOne]

I doubt Mom will respond to any sort of reason - a woman who deliberately sabotages her own child in that manner has some kind of agenda that you don't need to deal with.

A quick, practical solution would be for him/you to open a PO box - small ones are inexpensive - and have anything of importance delivered there. You can either do this at a post office or any of the mailing service centers. Alternately, he can have bills delivered to his place of employment or to a trusted friend - just call the creditors, explain what's going on, and they should be accommodating.

[Athena]

My fiance's mother used to do this. She also used to have full time possession of his bankcard, which she'd use without telling him. Extracting it from her and convincing her to leave his mail the hell alone involved a nasty argument and her not speaking to me for weeks. Not that i cared, old bat. He'd been asking her not to for ages. It took me, the interloper, interfering before she listened. She's talking to me again, but she's tried telling my man that i'm too 'strong willed' and won't make him happy. Last time i checked he was very happy.

[LostMyMind]

my parents open my mail as well, not just bills but whatever it is
its almost always bills but still
its really annoying, lemme know if you figure out how to stop it :P
It's a felony, as far as I understand it. Suggest to the police that a quick chat may be beneficial.
Yes, it's a felony to open mail that isn't addressed to you. However, if you're a minor. Your parents can open your mail because they are your legal guardian.

It's probably will never stop. You can try, but I think the only way you're going to not have your mail opened by your parents is to get a P.O. box.

[Greenday]

I hate having people open my mail. Like when my grades come in. I want to see my grades. Not my mom. In fact, at the university I'll be attending, they email your grades to you. But in high school, she always beat me to the mail for grades and mid-marking period results. Same thing with my sister's grades. Her college mails her grades to her. Whenever they come in and I'm telling my mom what the mail is for that day, she always tells me to open my sister's mail. I hate doing it but my mom is so freaking annoying when she is pissed. Like tonight. 7pm comes around and she wants me to go eat dinner with my family and my aunt and two cousins at a place 30 minutes away. She KNEW I was going out to play poker at 8 and she started freaking yelling at me because I chose not to go to dinner. But she's not as bad as other moms.

My sister's ex-boyfriend's mom is CRAZY! He is living in his parents' basement until his college bills are paid off. His mom will go down to his room while he is working, cleans everything, goes through all his stuff, including his mail. What a psycho. I think your ma-in-law is a psycho too...

[Sandman]

Ditto, Raps. Remind her that the police will be called next time he finds a piece of his main opened in her posession.

[Heksubah]

It is very much against the law to open another person's mail. If you really want to take the harsh route, call 1-800-ASK-USPS and report her. They have postal investigators who are akin to the FBI who will find out what's going on and solve the problem.

[Ryu]

I'm 20 and a college student so its not happening year round or I would do something about it.

[blas]

Everyone on here is right, it is most definetly against the law to open mail that is not addressed to you (it is legally considered tampering, isn't it?).

No matter how much he loves his mummy, he's going to have to speak up and let her know that she will no longer be opening his mail, or he will tell someone about it. And tampering with mail isn't something simple like blowing a stop sign or disorderly conduct........you'd be amazed how much trouble someone could get in for doing that.

Nosy parents have to be the worst thing ever, especially when their "children" are grown adults.

My parents know better than to even touch my mail. Once I was out of school, I let them know that they no longer had anything to snoop in, and they better never touch my mail. And they haven't touched my mail, either. Even though I am moving, I am keeping my postage address as my parents' house, in case it doesn't work at the new appartment. I wouldn't want someone new to move in there and get credit card offers with my name on them.

Tell that busybody bitch to stay out of his mail.

[Kiwi]

my mum used to open my mail, for her though, it was all about control, not absent mindedness

I changed my name when I was 18 legally so its not like she thought it was for her...

get a seperate letterbox, or tell her to ONLY take her mail out, or get to the mail first... ugh difficult situation all around

[Ljt09863]

thanks everybody. and i agree with what a few people said. she is psycho. my mother can't stand her. the other day, peters mom went into the store my mom worked at, as was ranting and rving to my mom, saying how we are all such lazy slobs, and how all we eat is her food downstairs and how all the food we have up here is food she bought.....

well, the funny things about that, is... this used to be her apartment. shd refused to move downstairs into the room we had until we had the spotless. but the mess up here, became OUR mess when we moved up here. seriously. she refused to clean up up here. she said its our mess now. and trust me...this place is horribly messy. trash all over, soda cans all over, and she calls me and peter slobs? bullsh!t.

the food that she left up here? yeah, she left alot up here, but i refuse to touch it. why? cause i keep finding crap that expired last year. i found a fruit cup that expired march of 2004. its gross. i won't eat her food up here. so me and peter go buy our own. and we hae eaten downstairs once in three months.


lets just say my mother was not happy that this woman came to her work and complained like that.

she is psycho, and a controll freak, and wans everybody in the house doing what SHE wants. last time we went up nrth, it was my first time, so peters dad had us doing things that i would enjoy. everything we did, we did for me, cause i had never experienced it. the whole time, Peters mom didn't want to do any of it, so she kept calling him selfish. selfish bastard, to be exact. i felt horrible for him

ugh...lets just say i can go on and on and on for pages about this woman. i don't care for her. im sorry for the rant. shejust drives me nuts, and me and peter can't afford to move somewhere else.

[Tanasi]

I had the same problem. I don't know if it was a control thing but after I returned from RVN she kept opening my mail so I returned the favor. When she complained I replied: "If you don't like it then don't do it to me", so after that she didn't open my mail without asking first or having been given prior permission.
With you being the intended instead the wife she's on a power trip and exercising what little power she has.
I would suggest a PO Box and then sign her up for all the junk mail you possibly can. As for the mess she left put the intended (since you're knocked-up) on the cleaning trail. Throw away all the expired food, bring down what ya'll didn't buy, and don't eat their groceries unless invited. Shine the place up and when you get your own place put her behind you and until she reforms don't give her access to the grandbabies.