Does your mailman pick up your mail?

[sungold123.livejournal.com]

Okay I'm going to sound like a country bumpkin here... but before I lived in Somerville, I lived in the middle-of-nowhere New Hampshire, where if we had outgoing mail, we'd put it in our mailbox and put up the red flag. The mailman would then take said mail and put the flag down. So, I figured if I left my outgoing mail on the little hook below my now-attached-to-the-house mailbox in Ball Square, the mailman would take it. However, I've tried this a number of times now and the mailperson has just left the mail there.

According to the USPS FAQs:

Outgoing mail is picked up:
* For curbside delivery if the flag is up or if there is mail to deliver.
* For door delivery if there is mail to deliver.
* From the outgoing mail slot in a Cluster Box.

Since I receive mail literally every day, it seems like my mail should be picked up. I'm curious to find out what other people's experience with this is...?

Comments

[closetalker11.livejournal.com]

I think it should be picked up, too, However, my mailman/women/people never do.

[en-ki.livejournal.com]

The USPS has always picked up my mail in this way in Boston, Somerville, and Medford. I've never had a flag; I just leave it in the mailbox, usually with an effort to make sure it's visible (sticking out vertically with the lid up).

If yours is visible and isn't getting picked up, it's probably worth calling the post office and asking what the problem is.

[ruthling.livejournal.com]

this is how I prepare my outgoing mail, too and normally it works fine, unless it's the day my mail delivery person doesn't want to deliver mail.

[jadelennox]

same. I make sure it is sticking out vertically and it always gets picked up (true in Somerville and Arlington)

[cheeseydreams.livejournal.com]

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the hook under the mailbox (since I have the same type of mailbox) is supposed to be for newspapers/circulars. The only way I've had mail successfully taken from there is if it's a 'return to sender' piece of mail. I wouldn't trust any important outgoing mail to hang out where someone could just take it if they were so inclined.

[georgy.livejournal.com]

Growing up, my grandmother affixed outgoing mail to that hook with a clothespin, and it always got picked up. Of course, we lived in a non-pedestrian area without ready access to curbside mailboxes.

[teele-sq.livejournal.com]

Growing up my grandmother always gave the mail carrier an xmas card with cash in it around this time of year. After she and the rest of her beautiful generation died, the practice mostly died out. That marked the beginning of the end of mail carriers who give a shit. Now I don't even know my mailwoman's name, though I don't wish her any specific harm.

I always tuck my outgoing mail in the mail slot on my front door. She picks it up, god bless her.

[georgy.livejournal.com]

Not sure what my grandmother did, but I used to give presents for the mail carrier when I was a kid. I distinctly remember making Christmas tree ornaments :-)

Maybe it's an urban versus suburban/rural thing? We definitely had more of a personal relationship with our mail carriers, when I was growing up.

[in-parentheses.livejournal.com]

When we were growing up, mail included things we actually wanted, as opposed to paper spam. I remember "Mail's here!" being an exciting thing. Now it's just crap to recycle, which (unfairly, I realize) makes me less inclined to feel warm 'n fuzzy about mail carrier.

Maybe I'll put a card out this year, though. It's a nice idea.

[ron_newman]

Monthly bills aren't some thing I "want", but not getting them would be worse. Also, I enjoy getting the New Yorker and NY Review of Books in my mailbox.

[closetalker11.livejournal.com]

This is also what I did growing up.

[sungold123.livejournal.com]

You may be right here (although my newspaper gets thrown on the porch) - but after trying putting the outgoing mail in the box, I thought putting it on the hook would at least make it more visible in case the mailperson didn't see it IN the box...

[cheeseydreams.livejournal.com]

I don't get a newspaper, but the circulars get jammed into my mailbox with the rest of the mail. Sometimes I try to put mail on the bottom when it's to a definite wrong address, but they just seem to ignore it most of the time.

[somertricky.livejournal.com]

Although delivery is daily, pickup from home is inconsistent, and IMHO has been much more so during the past year. If you've got a better option (office, or mailbox), use it.

[rmd.livejournal.com]

i've had no problem over in 02145 - i leave the letter in the mailbox so it's visible and they pick it up. this works for misdelivered mail, too.

[gingernoname.livejournal.com]

My mailman seems to pick up the mail whenever he feels like it. Sometimes he does, sometimes he doesn't. He NEVER picks it up in the rain. He said his bag is not waterproof so he won't take mail in the rain????

I also clothespin my mail to the hook on the bottom of the box.

If it's important, I take it to the post office drop box just to be sure.

[surrealestate.livejournal.com]

We have a binder clip attached to the mailbox and outgoing mail is affixed that way and has always been picked up.

I rarely actually do it, though, because there are plenty of mailboxes around, anyway. I grew up in a big city and the first time somebody around here told me one could even do such a thing, I totally didn't believe them. :)

[pekmez.livejournal.com]

We did that for a while and got tired of the binder clip getting taken too.
In the past 6 months or so our outgoing mail gets picked up less consistently.
This may be related to the fact that we have often put it since we ran out of binder clips in a convenient place near the mail box - I'm not 100% sure whether all the failure to pick up mail have been when we put it out without a binder clip, propped it over the opening of our mail basket.

[surrealestate.livejournal.com]

Wacky. This has been the same clip for at least five years, I think.

[sungold123.livejournal.com]

Yeah there are mailboxes around me too of course, but I just started working from home and I send mail every single day so it would just be a whole lot easier if I didn't have to trek to the mailbox. I suppose I'll try calling the post office and file a complaint and then see if it improves... if not, I don't really have much of a choice!

[surrealestate.livejournal.com]

Oh, I can understand why people do such a thing, it was just a completely alien practice to me, that's all. I thought my friend was putting me on. :)

I recommend a clip of some sort, anyway. I don't think my guy would pick up if I left it in the "newspaper hook", either.

[heliopsis.livejournal.com]

I attach my mail to the outside of the mailbox with a strong magnet, and the mailman always takes it. And I know at least some of the items have been delivered, so I'm inclined to believe this works.

[teele-sq.livejournal.com]

that's really messed up. have you ever complained to the post office? how many magnets has he taken? seems like there should be a cheaper option.

[closetalker11.livejournal.com]

... I think she meant the mailman takes the mail?

[heliopsis.livejournal.com]

"He," if you please. My emblem is a flower, but it's a butch flower!

[heliopsis.livejournal.com]

Oh goodness! The mail carrier never takes the magnet; he takes the mail and leaves the magnet on the mailbox. If he took the magnet, I wouldn't have done it twice.

"Pronoun trouble," as Daffy Duck once said.

[jamiesquared.livejournal.com]

I put my mail in the mail slot in my door and it is always taken to be delivered. I have the same mail woman every day except weekends though and she knows everyone in my neighborhood... not sure if that helps?

[talonvaki.livejournal.com]

Somerville postal service is the worst. When I first moved there, I thought, hey, I'll get mail at home.

Big mistake.

I lived in a building with three apartments. Mail got left on the (unenclosed) porch in a bundle for all three tenants in any sort of weather. Mail addressed to other houses at 51 or 53 whatever street ended up in our bundle. Sometimes, the elastic band was omitted, so the mail got scattered all over the porch.

When mail was actually put into our three boxes, it was jammed in so badly that you couldn't get mail out without ripping it. And it didn't seem to matter which name was on which box; mail got shoved into whichever box was handy.

Oh, I complained. Many, many times. It did no good.

Finally, after about a year of this nonsense. I got a PO Box downtown at Fort Point Station. Problem solved.

I lived in Somerville 9 years. When I moved, I was still getting mail addressed to the previous tenants (and the tenants before them).

Once, I got my neighbour's credit card statement. Good thing I'm not interested in identity theft. It sat in my box because I had the PO Box at this time so I didn't check it every day; I never found out if the person whose bill it was got a late payment fee.

I've lived in three states and one province, in cities and suburban locations. Somerville is the worst mail service I've encountered (and I had to deal with Canada Post!)

[afty.livejournal.com]

You have just described my experience with Somerville mail delivery to a T. Just yesterday we got two pieces of mail for the previous residents, who moved out 2 1/2 years ago. We routinely get mail addressed to X Willow Street when we live at X Banks Street. We sometimes find random strangers' mail tucked into the pages of a magazine we received. It's incredible how bad the postal service is here.

[josephineave.livejournal.com]

If you get mail from 2.5 years ago, then it's beyond the PO's fault. Forwarding orders last for 1 year. It's likely that 1) the recipient never changed an address with that vendor, 2) no one at the address who received a misaddressed piece of mail returned it to sender to correct the problem, 3) it's a nonforwardable piece of mail (catalog or the like) and/or 4) the square root of 37.

It sounds like most of those problems are sorting center problems since most mail ends up in a bundle for each address (that's where all those infernal rubber bands come from). No one reads the address label anymore, just the bar code.

[oakenguy.livejournal.com]

Pick up mail? Ho ho, it is to laugh. Jay Street must be near the very end of my carrier's route, because days would go by without any getting delivered to my building. Pickup NEVER happened.

[forgotten-aria.livejournal.com]

I've actually bumped into my mailman on the way to the corner box with a netflix envelope in hand and had him look a little insulted and tell me, "I'll pick that up from your house, you know" and I replied, "I know, but I enjoy the walk."

The moral of the story it is really depends on the carrier, that there are some Somerville mailmen out there who really really want to their job, including picking it up from your house.

Despite that, because of weather and other things, I still prefer to walk to the corner box, because I know it will be in there, dry, safe and not blown away by the wind.

Clothespinned to the front works for me

[avjudge]

Another data point - on Glenwood Rd (02145) I use the clothespin method and it's always worked except the few days I didn't receive any mail. I clip to the lip of the box (the clothespin keeps the lid from closing all the way but that doesn't matter) and the mailman pulls the envelope(s) out leaving the clip behind. I learned this from my sister-in-law in Orange County CA.

When I first got here I tried leaving it in the box, standing on end to be obvious (I thought), and that didn't work.

Anne

[tamalinn.livejournal.com]

When I lived in Spring Hill, my mail carrier picked it up. Now that I live in Winter Hill, my mail carrier never does. I wonder if it's a seasonal/geographic location thing. :)

[curiositykt.livejournal.com]

I leave it by the door with a post it note that says USPS and it goes away.

[genesayssitdown.livejournal.com]

i had this problem, now i just paperclip a little piece of paper to the mail that says "OUTGOING". works fine. they might be concerned that mail in the mailbox is just mail that hasn't been picked up by the resident yet.

[publius513.livejournal.com]

I second the idea that it depends on the mailman. Ours goes out of his way to take care of us. He always picks up anything outgoing. I usually leave it sticking out of the mailbox where he can see it. (In our last place, I did the same thing with the mail slot in the door.)

[sparkgrrl658.livejournal.com]

i can honestly say the only thing i don't like about living in arlington is the freaking mail :(

wouldn't trust it, if i were you.

[upsidown.livejournal.com]

I use a binder clip that I taped a label onto to read "OUTGOING MAIL" in red. Works perfectly.

[cfox.livejournal.com]

My main complaint about Somerville mail delivery is that sometimes mail addressed to Lastname, Firstname gets spuriously returned to sender (for valid names resident at the house). The postmaster gave me a long explanation to the effect of "we can't fix our software" when I called about it. (I let the matter drop after asking him nicely to file a bug report.)

[mamajoan.livejournal.com]

I'm a little late on this, but I do sometimes leave outgoing mail in the little hook thingie on the bottom of my mailbox, and the mail carrier does pick it up and it does get delivered. Except when the wind blows it out of the hook and it gets lost amongst all the junk on my front porch and I find it six months later. Which happened with the thank-you card that I wrote to my uncle after he gave me a big chunk of money. *facepalm*

[ionicaq.livejournal.com]

Are you ever home at a time you could catch your mailperson and talk to him/her?

USPS needs to go out of business - PRIVATIZE

[podinfl.livejournal.com]

I phoned USPS today because the postman never picks up my mail, or rarely ever. I am a Netflix subscriber and at my previous address, I had the movies timed so I received a new one every day (they deliver overnight). Well, I am lucky to receive two per week, if that. The lazy fat asses just drive by my house that has a mailbox about 15 feet from the road.

At any rate, USPS at the 800 number officially informed me that postmen are not required to pick up mail if there is no mail being delivered. So, regardless of how high they raise the postal rates, they keep the same old losers delivering mail and they do not have to pick up if they are not delivering.

My major complaint is that I know I have mail coming, but they still sit their fat asses in the truck and drive by. Why would I receive 2 or even 3 films at once when they are sent out separately? (Of course I had to mail them from somewhere else) I hope they go under and another company like FedEx takes over. If it wasn't for Netflix, I would never use the bloody mail.