Postal Question (Was this acceptable of the mail carrier?)

[Midnight12]

Sorry this is kind of long. And hopefully this does not detract from Kogarashi's post either.

I get a hand written addressed envelope in my mail box that is clearly not our address. I'm in the 300's this was addressed to someone in the 500's.
And it must be a new person assigned to the route as until now we haven't had any mishaps except for one time.
Firs time was that we got the neighbors catalog instead, and each mailbox has the House numbers on it so there is no mistake and the previous person on the route knew most of the people per household. Can't expect the new person to know that.

HOWEVER, this letter was from the local health unit which technically is part of the government and written in hand so for me that signifies double importance. First from a known government building, and if hand written instead of printed out then its even more important if not just personalized.

What really gets me is that the mail carrier WROTE on the envelope in small print off to the side with our address and a question mark as if to say was this meant to go to us?
That is the question, was the writting by the mail carrier breaking any rules or laws because who writes on a letter BESIDES "return to sender" or "no longer at this address" or similar stamped on. That bothers me as the way our street is, its odd numbers and it was section off from us so either the person who sorted it mixed it up or the person delivering got lazy.

I WILL give him or her slack as our mail was re-routed -a very dumb idea- so instead of coming to My Town USA and going out it comes to MY town usa, then to Lafayette and then back out to My Town usa. WTF

[MoonCat]

I don't think that's illegal. I've seen things like that before, for ex., when someone wrote the wrong zip on a card sent to us, someone at the post office crossed it off and wrote in the correct one.

I'd be more concerned that they could think far enough to wonder if it's the correct address, but not enough to LOOK at the house number and compare it to what's on the envelope. The only slack I can cut them is that maybe being hand-written, the first number looked more like a 3 than a 5?

[Midnight12]

nope it was clear enough to be a five.
And Hubs went looking to see if there were more behind us and went the wrong way and then got lazy and stopped looking so i gave up and wrote return to sender, incorrect address. By the time I would have had a chance to go look its too cold and getting dark, AND hopefully the original senders have her phone number as it looks like a check.

[Aethian]

It was NOT illegal to put a question mark on the letter to ask if it was yours or not. The 500 number most likely didn't exist or the name was not the name at the 500 number address.

As for looking more important there was a mailing that went out a week or so ago with everything handwritten. Problem was that the mailing list they had used was very old and the majority of the names were incorrect.

Please in the future do NOT write on the mail piece and instead place back in mailbox with flag raised to indicate the piece is to be picked back up. Writing return to sender on a item that is not yours can make it difficult to get it delivered to the correct address.

[BookstoreEscapee]

Please in the future do NOT write on the mail piece and instead place back in mailbox with flag raised to indicate the piece is to be picked back up. Writing return to sender on a item that is not yours can make it difficult to get it delivered to the correct address.

I usually stick a post-it on the stuff that's not mine (and we get stuff fairly often). If it's clearly junk mail I'll just toss it, otherwise it gets a "does not live here" note. Unfortunately I don't have a mailbox with a flag (we have the kind that mounts on the wall, which I can barely reach to the bottom of if I stand on the step, in the doorframe ). If I have to leave stuff I leave it on the hooks underneath the box (which I guess is supposed to be for newspapers?). Stuff I'm actually mailing goes in the blue US Mail box near the office.

[Aethian]

I usually stick a post-it on the stuff that's not mine (and we get stuff fairly often). If it's clearly junk mail I'll just toss it, otherwise it gets a "does not live here" note. Unfortunately I don't have a mailbox with a flag (we have the kind that mounts on the wall, which I can barely reach to the bottom of if I stand on the step, in the doorframe ). If I have to leave stuff I leave it on the hooks underneath the box (which I guess is supposed to be for newspapers?). Stuff I'm actually mailing goes in the blue US Mail box near the office.

Ya know I have yet to figure out the meaning of those hooks... I have on one of my routes the sweetest little old lady who finally needed to get a box at the house. To combat short arms she placed in the bottom a cloth covered foam brick that had to be pushed down she made it so tight. Then for a flag a red strip of felt was hot glued to the front of the box. When she has out going the felt is draped over the front of the box.

[Midnight12]

Please in the future do NOT write on the mail piece and instead place back in mailbox with flag raised to indicate the piece is to be picked back up. Writing return to sender on a item that is not yours can make it difficult to get it delivered to the correct address.

I did not know that. Will keep that in mind. I owe an apology to the mail carrier. And probably was an invalid address.

Also maybe with the hooks on the box that hangs, maybe they are to hold the newspaper? This was of course before the seperate news paper box attachments were created. Just a guess.
Will follow Bookstore's example and use a sticky note in the future

[draggar]

Question - do house numbers in the 500's exist on your street? Sometimes if the house # doesn't exist they'll try to make a guess on where it belongs (other times they'll send it back non-deliverable).

With some handwritings, a 5 can look like a 3 and vice versa.

[Stormraven]

For the record, at least with our carriers, if we leave something in the box that isn't brand new mail, it won't get picked back up unless we do write something on it.

They've left mail in our box that didn't belong to us for three days before I finally wrote 'not at this address' on it - only then did it get removed.

[Midnight12]

the person they had address it to either gave them the wrong address or something because we barely make it to the 500's and as far as I know we have it. However alot of the houses back there are either vacant now or people won't answer or something. I didn't open the envelope but holding it up to the light it didn't look like a letter but a thin piece of paper or check. So doing what I thought was a good idea wrote on it return to sender instead of going the further step and double checking.

So...i probably screwed up someone getting paid or something worse.

[BookstoreEscapee]

Ya know I have yet to figure out the meaning of those hooks... I have on one of my routes the sweetest little old lady who finally needed to get a box at the house. To combat short arms she placed in the bottom a cloth covered foam brick that had to be pushed down she made it so tight. Then for a flag a red strip of felt was hot glued to the front of the box. When she has out going the felt is draped over the front of the box.

I've contemplated devising some way of keeping things from falling to the bottom. My cousin got married the year before last; his wife's shower was in April and I got the thank you - postmarked early May - in December because it had gotten bent and pushed to the bottom of the box. Finally it got knocked loose and I felt it in there. My other option is of course to ask the complex to move it down a little. We're on the second floor, so the mailboxes are just mounted one above the other on the wall next to the door (there is one outside door for every 2 apartments). I've noticed some buildings have the upstairs box to the side and just a few inches higher than the downstairs box rather than one above the other, which would be much easier for me, being only 5'4".

[Andara Bledin]

Ya know I have yet to figure out the meaning of those hooks...

Periodicals. You roll up a magazine and place it in the hooks rather than try to stuff it into the box. They're actually called magazine hooks at a lot of mailbox vendor sites.

Not that my last carrier ever did that... I got a lot of scrunched up magazines.

^-.-^

[BookstoreEscapee]

Periodicals. You roll up a magazine and place it in the hooks rather than try to stuff it into the box. They're actually called magazine hooks at a lot of mailbox vendor sites.

Not that my last carrier ever did that... I got a lot of scrunched up magazines.

^-.-^

They never put my magazines in the hooks.

[Aethian]

I've only done that when I couldn't fit them in safely. Stuff one never knew.

Lexia, by doing that your getting real close to tampering with mail.

[MoonCat]

I had a major brain burp once with the mail. This was years ago. It was October 31st, we were going out for the afternoon and on the way out the door I grabbed the mail and tossed it in my totebag without looking at it. Came home later, hung up the bag--forgetting all about the mail--and didn't use it again for several months (March?)

Looked inside and found the mail. All of it was junk mail but one item, which looked like a check from social services, addressed to a house with the same number as mine but on the next street over. I was

I was horrified that I was going to be charged with stealing mail, had no idea what to do with it. Finally I just tossed it in the nearest mailbox. I figured the original recipient would have gotten a replacement check by then and wouldn't be able to cash this one anyway. I really felt bad but I was afraid to call the post office.