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Receiving mail for a prior occupant is just a fact of life. The only way to avoid it is to build a house, and live there forever, so there is no prior occupant.
My parents moved out of my childhood home 20 years ago, and every now and then, the buyers (who still live there) bring them a stack of mail they received at the house. My grandpa died more than 10 years ago, and mom still gets mail for him.
We've been in our office building for 16 years now, and we still get 3 or 4 things a year for the prior company.
Also, forward requests expire after either 6 months or a year, so even if the owner did put one in, that won't stop things forever. Once it expires, you'll start getting stuff again.
I also am still getting mail from two owners ago…more than 20 years ago….
I just toss it. 1) It's only a couple of things and it doesn't bother me.
I think before I move - whenever that might be in the future -- I might finally try to get it stopped. When I have time to even care enough to do it.
I think I read about doing the following in some consumer magazine or saw it somewhere that charities PAY for their self stamped and self addressed return envelopes and they sure as heck don't want them mailed back with 1) no money inside, and 2) a written request to stop the mailings…meaning they paid for someone to tell them to knock it off.
One thing that has worked for me with charitable solicitations is saving up several of them and in their own return envelope I put a note inside -- about three lines….that I had typed and copied about four to a page in strips….saying that this was written notice of an official and documented request to remove my name from any and all their mailing lists. That I was requesting as allowed by law that I be sent no more mailings of amy kind from the organization. And that if I continue to receive mailings a complaint would be filed to the propers agencies and authorities. You have to make it sound as official and legal as possible.
To save up enough of them for about a year's time I just tossed them into a box or basket whenever they came, knowing I would eventually sit down and send them back with my little note inside.
I saved up about six got eight of each company or charity, mailed that note back in those return envelopes that THEY had paid for.
What do you know?…..the mailings stop. Someone somewhere got the message, and my name was off their lists. I mailed them back all at once -- or like…three one day, three the next, and three the next.
As for magazines, catalogs and news letters I just call…and say take the name off the list.
I may do that again here at this new address. But, like I said, it's one professional magazine per quarter for a previous owner. NOT, a big deal.
So its been 2 months now of me writing NOT AT THIS ADDRESS - RETURN TO SENDER. I leave it in the mailbox and after a few days he ends up taking it. I then left a polite note saying I am the new homeowner and PO's were renters so please do not deliver anything other than ps2cho. No luck. I ALSO put a sticker with my name on it in the mailbox. Didn't make a difference.
Does my mail carrier have brain damage? Or more likely he's deliberately still delivering it. Yesterday I got TWO Wells Fargo debit cards for the PO!! I left it in the mailbox and he simply re-wrapped it in my new mail. I mean WTF???
Should I just call USPS or go down to my local office? Its not like its a few items every few weeks. I'm getting 2-3 mailers, every day, from 5 different names throughout the week.
So its been 2 months now of me writing NOT AT THIS ADDRESS - RETURN TO SENDER. I leave it in the mailbox and after a few days he ends up taking it. I then left a polite note saying I am the new homeowner and PO's were renters so please do not deliver anything other than ps2cho. No luck. I ALSO put a sticker with my name on it in the mailbox. Didn't make a difference.
Does my mail carrier have brain damage? Or more likely he's deliberately still delivering it. Yesterday I got TWO Wells Fargo debit cards for the PO!! I left it in the mailbox and he simply re-wrapped it in my new mail. I mean WTF???
Should I just call USPS or go down to my local office? Its not like its a few items every few weeks. I'm getting 2-3 mailers, every day, from 5 different names throughout the week.
The mail delivery person is simply following protocol.
So its been 2 months now of me writing NOT AT THIS ADDRESS - RETURN TO SENDER. I leave it in the mailbox and after a few days he ends up taking it. I then left a polite note saying I am the new homeowner and PO's were renters so please do not deliver anything other than ps2cho. No luck. I ALSO put a sticker with my name on it in the mailbox. Didn't make a difference.
Does my mail carrier have brain damage? Or more likely he's deliberately still delivering it. Yesterday I got TWO Wells Fargo debit cards for the PO!! I left it in the mailbox and he simply re-wrapped it in my new mail. I mean WTF???
Should I just call USPS or go down to my local office? Its not like its a few items every few weeks. I'm getting 2-3 mailers, every day, from 5 different names throughout the week.
Mail carriers don't like it when you refuse mail in any form. The way they generally seem to think is: they delivered it to the address on the item, now it's no longer their problem, and if you try to make it their problem, you are very odd and a big meany. You can call the postal phone number and register a complaint; your mail carrier will be talked to about it. However, it's going to take a lot of phone calls to make it go away, because everyone else except you and I just puts up with it, so the way the post office sees it, we are the nonconformist weirdos who make their life harder, and they aren't going to reward us for that.
Bottom line, though: if you stamp or write REFUSED on the piece, they have to take it back, unless in response to a mailing of yours within the recent past. One time I printed out the page of the domestic mail manual that says they have to do that, and it worked for a while, but the bottom line is that your carrier considers this to be messing with him, and questioning his authoritah, so 90% of them will mess back. That you have a perfect right to do this, and that they should simply take it back and dispose of it without complaint or retaliation, is believed and embraced only by a minority.
At my old house I received mail for 4-5 years for the previous owner, it never went away
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