My Mailman is an IDIOT

The BBQ Pit
1

Several times a week we get the wrong mail. Stuff addressed to neighbors, usually, but sometimes stuff addressed to wildly different addresses. Today was the worst, though. We got mail FROM one of our neighbors, addressed to someone in Scottsdale, AZ. So the mailman took it out of the “out” box and put it into our box.

He’s totally incompetant, and it drives me batty!

2

I should mention that the misdelivered mail is often for people on other STREETS not just like one-number-off.

3

I can think of 4 things that might affect this, outside of him being a fuckup:

  1. The setup of his mail case. There are rows with slots in these cases, and he may have aimed too high or low and thus put that mail in the wrong slot. Too many of these are obviously his fault, but an occasional mistake happens. Doesn’t sound occasional in your instance.
  2. Perhaps you don’t have the same carrier every day - your route may not have a standard carrier assigned, which means that it’s split up between whoever has the time to deal with extra work that day. Can lead to slipshod delivery, which still isn’t a good thing.
  3. Does this only or almost always happen with pre-barcoded mail? This stuff is machine-sorted, and in many/most offices, letter carriers are absolutely forbidden to sort it in with their mail. This means that they have to check 3 different bundles (letters, “flats”, and “DPS” - the presorted mail) for each and every house. The problem is that the DPS mail has a fairly decent error rate for missorted mail, and sometimes those missorted envelopes will be in the middle of other properly sorted ones. Unless the carrier takes the time to finger through each envelope at each house, missorted mail can slip through that way.
  4. If this happens only once a week, it’s probably the substitute for the regular carrier’s day off who’s the fuckup. My husband (a letter carrier) has had people complain to him about their horrible problems that only, upon questioning, occur on the days he’s not working.

In the short term, leave wrong mail in your mailbox for him to pick up. You might want to consider checking to see if it is a problem with the barcoded mail mostly, though the mail from the neighbor is obviously wrong. Even if a letter is going down the street, it’s policy to bring the letter in to be cancelled and processed like every other piece of mail. Then call the post office and ask to speak to a delivery supervisor. Explain your situation, describe if it’s a mostly DPS (pre-barcoded) mail problem or a problem with all your mail, if it seems to happen in a pattern or not. If you have any recent examples, tell them the date of occurrence if possible.

4

It happens several times a week. Not sure about the barcode thing, I’ll keep an eye out.

5

It happens to us, too. I live in a town named “Hudson”. Just to the north of this town is “North Hudson”. There is a street with the exact same name as our street up in North Hudson. The guy who lives at the exact same house number, on the same named street shares his first name with my SO. So we not only get his mail, but his 1. Pizza deliveries (more than once) 2. Flowers (I was really bummed when I found out they weren’t for me) 3. Furniture (woulda been nice) 4. Cable TV (Huh? We already have cable).

We often get mail that is addressed to our neighbors one block down. I tried putting our names on our mailbox, but that didn’t help. I talked to the mail carrier who does our route most often, and told her the names of the only two people who should be getting mail at our house (my SO and Me) and that helped a little bit. I would say that at least once a week we get someone else’s mail. I really worry when it happens with packages - I buy a lot on eBay. Luckily the guy in North Hudson is really good, and calls us when he gets our packages, and we do the same when we get his.

6

That can definitely help, because then the carrier will put a note on the case at your slot, listing the names that should be delivered there. Then if they see a wrong name on the letter while sorting, they can put it aside for determining where it should go, or if it needs to be returned to sender. Similar town names/street names/etc. are a real hassle at times - if it makes you feel any better, the carrier got those pieces of mail in his route’s stack of mail, and glanced at the mail when sorting. He sees the address and puts it into your house’s slot in his case. Someone further up the chain of mail sorting (assuming the mail isn’t misaddressed) incorrectly handed it to his route. So it’s an understandable mistake, but one he should really be looking out for more now that he knows it’s an issue.

We live on my husband’s route, so we know our mail shouldn’t be getting misdelivered, at least by him or any of his friends that might cover his route. :smiley:

7

For years we have been getting mail for the people who live at the same house number on the street one block north of us. They have also been getting our mail. The street names are nothing like each other, and the misdelivered mail has been catalogs, barcoded bills and bank statements, junk mail, and regular letters. When I leave the misdelivered mail in the box sometimes it gets picked up and sometimes it doesn’t. I’ve called the local post office and filed several complaints, and so have the people who get my mail. It hasn’t happened in almost two months now; maybe the p.o. has finally found out what was causing the problem, or maybe I’ve gotten a new carrier who knows how to sort mail.