The Mail, a follow-up

(Note: This post is a follow-up to the post entitled The Mail. You may want to read it first.)

I brought the bag of mail to the post office and the postal worker behind the counter said he would do what he could. The next few days, the mail for the previous tenant stopped, but then it started up again. I did some research and found that not only is it a federal offense to open someone else's mail, but it is also a federal offense to dispose of someone else's mail. So, what's a girl to do? Well, here's the information I found at usps.com:

For other misdelivered mail items (such as letters):

• If the mailpiece is delivered to the wrong location:
  • Don't erase or mark over the information, or write any type of endorsement on the mailpiece.
  • Place the item back in the mailbox or hand the item back to your mailperson.
• If the mailpiece is delivered to the correct location but the recipient on the mailpiece does not reside at the address:
  • Write "Not at this address" on mailpiece.
  • Don't erase or mark over the address.
  • Provide the mailpiece to your mailperson or drop into a Collection Box® receptacle.

Along with the mail marked "Not at this address" I also put a note explaining the situation to the mailperson (apparently this is what they want to be called?) and letting them know that I am the new current resident. I haven't had any misdelivered mail since!

The Previous Tenant

Well, I talked to my landlord about the situation with the previous tenant's mail. Turns out, the previous tenant (from now on known as PT) skipped town. He owes money to my landlord, and considering the number of overdue notices in my mailbox, he owes money to quite a few people. Having these bills and letters in my possession was making me very uneasy.

I went to the post office this afternoon with a large bag full of mail addressed to the PT and explained the situation to the postal worker. He was very understanding and said he'd do his best to make sure that the PT's mail won't be delivered anymore, but he couldn't make any promises.

Hopefully, this will be the last of the barrage of unwanted mail. Although, I wouldn't mind if his magazine subscriptions kept coming!

The Mail

You would think that checking your mailbox for the first time, on the day before your lease starts, would prove to be rather fruitless. However, if neither the previous tenant nor the tenant before him stopped their mail, you may find that there is a month's worth of junk mail, free newspapers, bills and tax documents in the mailbox so that it is almost bursting at the seams.

I don't mind the junk mail, the free coupons, and the newspapers so much, but the bills and tax documents I find some what distressing. I feel like they must be important enough to try to get them to the addressee in some way, but at the same time, if he didn't feel the need to file the appropriate paper work to have his mail forwarded, why should I care either? Then there's the possibility that he DID file the paperwork, but the post office is just delivering the mail anyway for the heck of it.

So what to do with all of it? Well, I put it in a bag and I'm going to go to the post office sometime this week and see what they think. If that doesn't get me anywhere, I am going to give it to my landlord and let him deal with it. Hopefully that is close to the proper etiquette for the situation, but I don't think Miss Manners ever wrote on the subject, so we may never know.