I need to send a letter to someone who moved from their residence without a forwarding address. I know the street address of the office where they work, but that office address was never used for postal deliveries (the residence address was), and it has no mailbox outside the door or mail slot in the door. For various reasons, I have the feeling that the door would not be opened if the mail carrier were to knock.
So what does a mail carrier do when there is no obvious place to leave mail? Is the mail ultimately returned as undeliverable? Left exposed in front of the door? (This seems like a really bad idea, especially in this case as the door is flush with the sidewalk.) Could the mail carrier take it upon themselves to deliver the mail to a PO box, if they knew the recipient had one (this is a small town, so it’s possible they’d know)?
Mail would not be left in front of the door – AFAIK, it needs to be delivered to a mailbox or mail slot. If not, it goes back to the P.O. and returned as undeliverable.
In a small town, it is possible that they deliver mail to the recipient’s P.O. box. That’s how it works for my parents: all their mail (to two addresses, both business and home) goes to a P.O. Box even if the street address is used. It depends on the postmaster and any regulations that may have gone into effect with increased security.
I haven’t tried to mail anything just yet. Apparently, a PO box was opened, but the person who told me this was not sure they had the correct number. Given the circumstances, I’m inclined to think that a forwarding request (from the residence to the PO box) wasn’t filed with the Post Office.
Since I have no other address I’m sure of beyond the one for their office, I just wanted to know what the mail carrier might do with mail sent there.
If it’s a small enough town, (with a small PO and one ZIP code), you could just send it to the person’s name, town, state, ZIP. That’s my situation and I’ve gotten mail that way.
[And for my parents, I could send it just to their ZIP-plus-four and they would get it.]
I was a carrier one summer (a long time ago) and I’m pretty sure the rule is that if there is no way to properly deliver mail (which includes dangerous looking dog in the yard) you return it to the office.
However, even if you aren’t sure of the number, the people who file the mail in the boxes are probably pretty good at associating name and box, especially of you add a question mark or something by the box number. You wouldn’t be the first person to get the number wrong. I saw the carriers sort the mail (this was before zip+4) and they were fast - fast enough I’m sure they did it by name, not address.
Having once received mail from overseas that had only half my address printed on the label, I know how good the post office can be at ultimately delivering to the right person.
However, since at some point I’ll probably have to send documents of a legal nature, I’d prefer to know that delivery was actually going to be made to a complete and correct address. If the office address I have won’t do, then I’ll need to do a bit of investigating to get a proper alternative.
