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I have a huge amount of unopened mail accumulated over several years and I want to securely destroy it all. Are there any shredders rugged enough to do it and not jam up or break down? (I am potentially willing to spend lots of money if necessary). Or, alternately, any shredding companies that will allow me to watch them as they shred it? I am afraid of letting complete strangers have all my sensitive documents out of sight. Thanks!
I have a huge amount of unopened mail accumulated ...
Sort through it for the actual FIRST CLASS postage marks. Make TWO piles.
Then review the real mail to be sure you haven't missed anything important.
As to the shredding... FedEx has the service and the real deal shred companies often have
sponsorship days at local venues (churches schools etc). Look for them.
Leave your paranoia in the car.
Do you know there are "sensitive documents" in the mail? Are these same documents being emailed to you? If so, why are they also being mailed to you?
Here's what I do every day and it works for me:
I get the mail. I chunk most of it in the regular trash because it's just junk mail. I shred anything like credit applications, or anything like that. For bills I get in the mail, I pay them online, mark as paid with the confirmation number, and I save them for a few months, in a file. I shred these documents several times a year. If it was a big pile, I'd burn it in the fire pit but I've only had to do that once, after settling an estate.
By shredding things as they come in, it's just a few pieces a week. I just bought a shredder at Office Depot or somewhere like that several years ago and it works fine.
Many Banks/Credit Unions have "Shred" Can's (Basically) Locked Trash can with a slot in the top to drop the item in. In there lobbies or off to the side, That you can bring and deposit you Shred in.
They are probably not going to let you bring in boxes of stuff, But if you can get it down just to the stuff that really need to be shredded that might work.
As noted above community shred day are also limited to 3-5 Bags/boxes of "Stuff'.
You can also hire the big truck shred to come to your home, but that can be costly.
I have a huge amount of unopened mail accumulated over several years and I want to securely destroy it all. Are there any shredders rugged enough to do it and not jam up or break down? (I am potentially willing to spend lots of money if necessary). Or, alternately, any shredding companies that will allow me to watch them as they shred it? I am afraid of letting complete strangers have all my sensitive documents out of sight. Thanks!
Sorry....I just have to ask. Why in the world would you not open your mail, especially sensitive documents. Did you not want to know what these documents said?
I live in the country. We own a small shredder, but if I had a large amount of paper to dispose of securely, I'd burn it in our burn barrel. I understand that's not legal everywhere.
Professional shredding companies shred actual sensitive information, from billion dollar companies keeping track of large accounts, for a living. Not sure why you don't think they can be trusted with old mail that wasn't even worth opening, for you?
Sorry....I just have to ask. Why in the world would you not open your mail, especially sensitive documents. Did you not want to know what these documents said?
It could be junk mail. I get a lot of that... for me, for former tenants "or current resident" and a lot of it ought to be shredded (like, different agents from one big insurance company keep sending to some former tenant "or current resident" which means I get stuck with it, and something like that probably needs to get the shred).
There are mobile shredding services that charge by the pound. If this is a one-time deal during preparation for a move, the convenience and satisfaction might be worth it. When I cleared out my dad's house I had about 50 years worth of financial "records" (I mean a hodge podge of stuff that actually never needed to be kept, stuff that might have been important for a week over 20 years ago, and a surprisingly small amount of stuff that was actually necessary or worthy of filing) to get rid of. Looked up shredding services in the yellow pages and had a truck come to the house. All told, ended up being about 1500 lbs of shred. You might be heading down this road. I don't recommend it.
OP you need a better system to deal with your mail. For one thing, turn off "hard copy delivery" if you don't even open the envelopes. I have 4 basic categories for mail:
Junk with no personally identifiable information. Doesn't even make it all the way into the house. Recycle paper box immediately.
Junk with personally identifiable information. Shredding box immediately. Or, tear off or black out the sensitive info portion and recycle the rest.
Temporarily useful information (bank statements, bills). Pay the bill, balance the statement, answer the letter, then shred every couple of months.
Long term or permanently useful information. Scan and file or save hard copies in a banker box. Almost nothing ends up here.
Last edited by Parnassia; 01-05-2019 at 02:19 PM..
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