Wrong Address! Really!!

[mihmo.livejournal.com]

I moved into my apartment near Davis in September. September 2006. Five months ago.

I'm still receiving mail addressed to the previous residents' and the residents' before them. All in all maybe a total of 6 different names. It's really starting to annoy me. It wouldn't be such a big deal, but I've lived here almost half a year now, and I get more previous residents' mail than my own mail, and I receive it almost every day.

How to fix this is a mystery to me. The USPS website only advises to cross out the address on the envelope and write 'not at this address' on the envelope. Well, I've been doing this for months now, and I'm receiving what appear from the envelope to be the former residents W-2s! As well as paycheck stubs! I've even looked into filing a change of address for these folks (leaving the forwarding address blank) but legally I can't do that. Should I be calling the post office and complaining? (I haven't yet, because I don't want to get my mail carrier in trouble unless it's really necessary.)

It doesn't make sense to me why this is happening in the first place. In the past, I've had to fight to get my mail delivered at the correct, change-of-address-filed-with-the-post-office address before because I only had a paper nametag on my mailbox before the apartment complexes made a real nametag (in NH). It seems in Somerville, the postal delivery folks don't even seem to care to look at the names on the mailbox. Any tips / advice / ideas? Is anyone else experiencing this annoyance in the Davis Sq. area?

Thanks in advance.

Comments

[bikergeek.livejournal.com]

I live in Belmont and I've been experiencing it at my apartment. What my mailbox says is:

"$HOUSE_NUMBER/$LAST_NAME Accepting mail for $LAST_NAME only. Please forward all other mail." You might also want to have a friendly word with your letter carrier, if you can catch him or her, and let him or her know what the deal is. If it persists after that, go to the post office that your letter carrier works out of (often *not* the one closest to your house!) and ask to talk to the delivery supervisor and tell him or her what's going on.

I've done all of the above and the nuisance mail addressed to former residents has slowed to a trickle. Occasionally there's a burst of it if there's a substitute letter carrier.

Oh, and bundle up all the mail and give it either to the letter carrier or bring it to the post office and hand it to the delivery supervisor.

[nowalmart.livejournal.com]

That is weird - when I first moved to Davis in 2004, the mailman was refusing to deliver my mail until I put my name up on the box.

[cutieperson]

we're definitely experiencing it, and it sucks. what sucks more is that our letter carrier literally yelled at me to put names on the mailbox and still persists in delivering mail for Names Not On The Box. if you're going to bitch at me to help do your job correctly, i expect you to follow through. grr.

[watchamacallit.livejournal.com]

Ugh. That happened to me in Cambridge. The mail carrier REFUSED to deliver my mail without my name on the box but had no problem delivering the previous tenants' mailf or THREE YEARS. I ended up throwing out the guys mail after a while (FELONY!).

[midorionna.livejournal.com]

my roomies and i have been so frustrated with similar problems- our mail carrier has been delivering the entire block's mail to us in one bulk packet- so much so that we had about 30 pieces of mail yesterday only one of which was ours. this has been happening for MONTHS, and i'm sure that a lot of my mail is missing.

arg.

[midorionna.livejournal.com]

my roomies and i have been so frustrated with similar problems- our mail carrier has been delivering the entire block's mail to us in one bulk packet- so much so that we had about 30 pieces of mail yesterday only one of which was ours. this has been happening for MONTHS, and i'm sure that a lot of my mail is missing.

arg.

[mihmo.livejournal.com]

oh my goodness, yes, that happens in my building too - we have mailboxes but sometimes the carrier bundles all the mail that didn't fit on a per floor basis into one big packet, including normal envelopes, not just catalogs and junk. i still haven't received my tax forms so I'm guessing that's how they got lost. :-/

[cook-ting.livejournal.com]

I'm in a 4 unit and the carrier just drops all of the mail in my box, despite all the boxes being labeled properly. Every day I have to sort the mail for everyone when I get home.

Consider yourself lucky.

[capier.livejournal.com]

Our mailman just drops everyone's mail on a pile on the ground, despite the fact that we have separate, labeled boxes.

[babstaah.livejournal.com]

Newman!!

[dictator555.livejournal.com]

We've lived here for a year and a half and we still get previous tenants' mail multiple times per week. I don't have a solution, just sympathy. It is a pain.

[tsuki-no-bara.livejournal.com]

i had the same problem as nowalmart - i didn't get mail for three weeks after i moved here because my name wasn't on the box. which is kind of the opposite of your problem.

sounds like the previous tenants didn't fill out a change of address form, but other than bundling their mail up and taking it back to the post office and explaining the problem to a supervisor, i have no idea what to tell you.

[mihmo.livejournal.com]

i might start doing that, but i worry when time-sensitive stuff like W-2's are coming in. Gah. I hope I get *my* W-2s :)

[hrafn.livejournal.com]

If the intended recipients are even a tiny bit clueful, they'll realize they haven't received W-2s, and contact their employers, who can send them a new copy.

[vanguardcdk.livejournal.com]

Well if you really wanted to put some work into it you could check the phone book (or call information) to see if you can get a phone # for the people who's mail you're getting. Then you can call and see if they can get it sorted out on their end.

Sure it's a pain, but I imagine someone is really wondering what happened to their tax forms...

[mamajoan.livejournal.com]

If someone moved and didn't put in a forwarding order and is sitting around wondering where their mail is, I'm sorry but that person is an idiot and it's not worth the new resident's time and energy to worry about it. It's nice of the original poster to be concerned about people not getting their tax forms, but really, it's not her problem.

but then maybe I'm just cranky and you're just trying to be nice... ;) ...honestly, looking them up in the phone book and calling them and trying to sort it out is WAY more effort than I would be willing to put in. It's THEIR fault for not leaving a forwarding order, so THEY should be making the efforts to fix the problem.

[cutieperson]

forwarding orders get disregarded by the post office ALL THE TIME. it's the responsibility of the letter carrier to handle it, and if there is a fill in they often don't bother.

[damsel-ophelia.livejournal.com]

We've got the same problem, and we're pretty much stuck with it, according to the post office...because if the mail is addressed to your house and if there is no forwarding order, then the mail MUST get delivered to that address. I was advised to do the whole "Not at this address" thing, and toss the mail into a mailbox to get taken back to the post office. The forwarding order, BTW, only covers 1st class mail and mail that specifically states to forward...so magazine subscriptions and stuff like that may not necessarily follow. BLARGH!

[bikergeek.livejournal.com]

I was advised to do the whole "Not at this address" thing, and toss the mail into a mailbox to get taken back to the post office.

I did that. it came back.

You can lessen the chances that it'll come back by rendering the bar code on the letter unreadable, if there is one. But some of them will still come back.

[in-parentheses.livejournal.com]

Yup, I was just about to say this, about blacking out the barcode when you write "Not at this address." When I had this problem (among others - mail service in Somerville is kind of substandard, it seems) and took the unwanted mail to the post office, the clerk said that a human being never looks at returned mail. They just run the barcode again! How very useful.

[elements.livejournal.com]

This is a great piece of advice. I think I'll start doing that myself for anything that looks worth actually returning. Not sure if I'll bother dealing with catalogs though!

[mihmo.livejournal.com]

That has happened with some of the ones I put not at this address on too. I just put them in a different mailbox. :)

[kjc.livejournal.com]

We've been living at our place for coming up on SIX YEARS and we still get the mail of the previous owners (who didn't even live there for something like 18 months before they sold it).

If it's a personal note (like a wedding invitation or hand-addressed letter) or something business-looking (from a bank) I write "RETURN TO SENDER - NO LONGER AT THIS ADDRESS (try Lynn, MA)" because I know they moved to someplace in Lynn.

But we still regularly get the random piece of their junk mail and one magazine subscription.

[autumnsshadow.livejournal.com]

The 'Not at this address' approach will work eventually and mostly work, but it will take some time because that does not notify the PO, but the sender. At one point we were receiving mail for five or six different previous tenants, and we may still get a piece from time to time, but certainly nowhere near the volume we used to. Making mention of it to your mail carrier would also potentially help.

[chenoameg.livejournal.com]

Three things you can do:

- Talk to the landlord and ask him or her to contact the previous tenant out of concern that important paperwork is being misplaced.

- Bribe Tip the letter carrier. We have had lovely service from our letter carriers; I'm sure that the generous Christmas tip we give

- Individual contact with the letter carrier. Polite, just say "I'm sorry, we seem to get a lot of wrong mail. Is there something else we should do to make our mailing label clearer?"

Or just keep doing what you're doing. As soon as you get the mail, write "return to sender" and "not at this address" on it and then toss it in a mailbox, or stick at your outgoing mailbox for the letter carrier to collect.

Good luck!

[veda815.livejournal.com]

I think it's just part of life as a renter in an urban area.

Like someone above said, the mailman is just doing his job delivering to the address he is given. If you're going to be mad at someone it's either the prior tenant who didn't notify everyone of their address change or whoever sent the mail if they didn't listen to the address change or previous letters you've been having returned to sender.

[mihmo.livejournal.com]

Yeh, I'm not really mad at the mail carrier so much as the previous tenants, although I can't really blame them either - apparently when you file a change of address with the post office they sell your address to catalogs and such. :-/

[two-stabs.livejournal.com]

I suggest a sarcastic note attached to your mailbox.

"Dear mail carrier,

If the addresses I've been striking haven't been enough of a clue, these six people no longer live at this residence. Future mail for (list names) will serve as compost."

[lissie930.livejournal.com]

I don't have much advice, as we only rarely get mail to previous residents (helps that this building was empty for years before it was rehabbed and sold!). But I do have to say that I'm baffled by this - I mean, don't people file a change of address form when they move?

[treacle-well.livejournal.com]

Forwarding orders expire--at different times for different types of mail, I think. Once expired the mail starts coming to old address again. Usually this is mostly junk mail or correspondents who have been out of touch for a long while.

It might seem baffling that one wouldn't have sent an employer a change of address so that W-2s end up at the right address, but if you change addresses some time after you've ceased employment for someone, it's actually pretty easy to not think about the fact that a former employer will need the new address. I've almost made this mistake in the past.

[ron_newman]

But when a forwarding order expires, mail should start being returned to the sender. The mail gets a label from the post office saying "Forwarding Order Expired" and giving the new address. I've seen such things myself.

[treacle-well.livejournal.com]

Reality is that it often doesn't work that way (it might even depend on whether or not the sender has "return mail service requested" printed on the envelope or something). I've personally observed cases where roommates moved out, put in forwarding orders, and within a few weeks little or no mail addressed to them showed up. But after a while--6 months, a year, suddenly mail addressed to them would start showing up again.

[fanw.livejournal.com]

Well, we have the same problem! But we also have the problem that the mail carrier will deliver anything with "110" on it, sometimes for other streets in the neighborhood. Also, sometimes "112" or other numbers. At least the stuff you're getting once really did intend to get there!

[mattlistener.livejournal.com]

We had the same problem as well. The problem has been 100% solved by the following sign on our box:

"Dear Mail Carrier,
Please only deliver mail for the following names. All others, please forward.
(my name)
(my wife's name)"

Occasionally we get a piece of mail addressed to someone else for which the mail carrier has apologetically circled the words "or current resident" that appeared on the label -- which is fine by me and indicates they're taking my sign to heart.

[joylewis.livejournal.com]

Some person registered his car and his business using my address. I've recently received a title for his vehicle as well as all the insurance paperwork for his business (I suspect, gathering from the outside of the envelope.) I'm wondering if there's something illegal going on or if he was dyslexic or something and gave everyone the wrong house number... I've done return to sender on all of it (about 20 pieces in total, some obviously more official than others) but I wonder if there's some kind of fraud afoot.

[ron_newman]

There are a few streets that cross from Cambridge into Somerville, and are duplicates of another street by the same name in one of the two cities. Elm Street and Oxford Street come to mind; there may be others. Are you on one of these?

[joylewis.livejournal.com]

I'm not. I used to live on Oak Street in the Somerville part of Inman (my street started and ended in Cambridge, but I lived on the Somerville portion). But my current street is all Somerville...

[dominika-kretek.livejournal.com]

We have this problem too. But I don't mind about that, except as a sign of general incompetence. What I mind is 1) mail that should be in someone else's box; 2) my mail that ends up on the floor; 3) my mail that gets delivered to someone else's box; 4) my mail that gets delivered to the business on the first floor; 5) my mail that never shows up anywhere.

It is very, very disturbing to see previous tenants' jury duty notices, car registrations, census forms, utility bills, and even summonses get left on the floor in our stairway. We also had current tenants' census forms end up in a big rubber-banded bundle on the floor. Good thing I spotted them, or I would have been struck from the voter rolls.

It occurs to me now that it might be that the PO is delivering them to the super's office, who is just putting them in themselves, but that doesn't explain that the one time I made a complaint to the PO, things got better for about a month or two.

Anyway, it drives me crazy.

[turil.livejournal.com]

Somerville mail service is the worst I've ever seen. My mail almost never gets forwarded properly. And, just like everyone else it seems, the postal carriers obnoxiously refuse to deliver any mail if there isn't a name on the mailbox, while also obnoxiously delivering any mail for anyone if there's even one name on the box. The people who deliver the mail in Somerville are seem to be some of the most miserable people I've ever encountered.

I kindly offered the mail carrier a pile of first-class mail that was for people who had moved out and he said it would just get thrown away. Having worked for a non-profit organiation that relied on the post office returning any of our mail that couldn't be delivered, I was shocked and saddened by this. But then, we are living in a world where a job is just a way to make money, not something to care about.

Oh, and I've often gotten mail for the mayor, who's my neighbor. That's just amusing to me for some reason. I guess I just assume that the mail carrier would at least try to deliver the mayor's mail properly...

[elements.livejournal.com]

I have lived in Somerville for 6 1/2 years. I have never been able to do anything lasting to stop getting old tenants' mail.

I have also not had a lot of luck getting my own mail to forward fully - often it's very delayed after a move, or some goes to the old address and some to the new (and I pick the old addy stuff up from the new tenants at the old place). Apart from forwarding issues, I have sometimes had trouble getting mail promptly. I've had mail arrive at my house weeks after the postmark even when it's coming from the Boston area.

In short, our local postal system isn't so fantastic. I expect they are overworked and underfunded across the whole system. Put your own name on your mailbox and clearly mark that you are only accepting mail for yourself, the current resident. But that will probably just slightly stem the tide.

[frolain.livejournal.com]

Medford completely failed to forward my mail despite a change of address form. I didn't bother to complain because it didn't see worth the pain.

[vonelftinhaus.livejournal.com]

I should consider myself lucky that I moved into a house that had the same owner/family living in it for the past 65 years!