Don’t open any discreet, plain packages until you’ve checked the address twice! You don’t want to know what he’s into.
I would not (and did not) get all snarky about this when my husband’s W2 was delivered to a neighbor, and the neighbor, who was also no doubt expecting a W2 in the mail, opened it. He brought it right over and apologized for opening it. I thanked him.
My husband, though, was all ready to react just like your neighbor. Good thing I was the one home when the neighbor brought it over.
Now, this neighbor is not next door. His address is the transposition of our address. We get all his magazines. My husband thinks we are now entitled to read them before dropping them off at his place.
Add me to the list of people who don’t check the name on a bill that comes every month. Well, I was looking at the Telus Mobility bill, but mostly because I was in awe of how much wronger they could get our names and address. (It reached “Ms. Chanandler Bong” proportions. 
)
And oh yeah, your neighbour was an ass. Something to keep in mind any time you have an inclination to do anything nice for them in the future (or they ask you for a favour).
My thoughts EXACTLY! :rolleyes:
[quote=“Left_Hand_of_Dorkness, post:6, topic:557361”]
Hey, lesson learned. If you ever get that neighbor’s mail again, throw that shit away. Other neighbors you continue to be neighborly to.QUOTE]
So basically you’re advocating being a BIGGER asshole? I see :rolleyes:
Jerk neighbor. But do NOT take revenge, that won’t end well. If you get his mail again, jsut stick it on his door or mailbox, when he’s not looking.
Ofttimes, people who have been so poorly socialized as to be assholes to people who are being nice to them only understand if you make something difficult for them.
You have to do something, as it is your societal responsibility to keep assholes from acting like assholes. A passive agressive method is probably not best, but you do need to communicate that the way the neighbor acted was not acceptable.
It doesn’t matter that the guy has a point. He is not justified in treating his neighbor poorly. People make mistakes. And, like it or not, most people do not carefully read their mail and make sure it belongs to them.
If you want people to be nice to you, it behooves you to be nice to them.
He’s an idiot. I have done the same thing several times in just the same way and have dropped off the mail with no complaints. I only notice it’s not mine and don’t open it if it’s from a company I don’t deal with. One time I received my credit card bill and in the envelope was another credit card bill for someone a few streets away. I dropped it off and we had a conversation about how the bank must sort them by suburb for mailing to get bulk mail rates. But no abuse.
This example isn’t analogous to the OP. In the OP case, it was HIS fault hesaw the guy’s mail, in your example, as you said, the post office scewed up.
I realize that. I am just saying that, regardless of who’s error it is, the snark is just willful dickheadedness. And I assume the error wasn’t the post office’s rather the fault of the machine doing the enveloping at the bank’s mailing facility. It had simply grabbed two sheets instead of one.
And as I said I have done exactly what the OP said several times. I only check the address if I don’t recognize the sender.
I get this all the time. Not so much with letter carriers, but with people trying to visit one house on the next street over. If I’m at 123 Fake St. my neighbor is at 123 Fake Pl. We have the same color house, although the other house is a retirement home. I’ve had deliveries, mortuary workers, hospital staff show up at my door looking for old people. I’m always cheery about it, I think it’s amusing how people bluster like they’ve inconvenienced me somehow.
I think if I’d received this treatment I’d stand there shocked for a moment and then say something like, “You realize I’m doing you a favor, here?”
Yes, your neighbour was being a jerk.
I had a similar thing happen a few weeks ago but from the other side - I had renewed my rail season ticket over the phone and it was taking a little longer to arrive than I thought it should, but not enough to chase it up.
Anyway, on a Saturday morning a woman knocked on the door and explained that she lived at the same number but a few streets away - I don’t know how the postman does it, but we quite often seem to get post for that street and they for ours, even though the streets are not adjacent and don’t have similar names - and she had opened my post by mistake.
Same as with the OP, she’d just put all the “official” looking envelopes to one side to deal with later, and had actually used the back of the envelope to write a note to her son (something like “RYAN - TIDY YOUR ROOM TONIGHT!!!” 
) before noticing that this wasn’t for her.
That season ticket was worth almost £3,000, so I’m glad she was honest and took the effort to bring it round. I didn’t mind at all that she had opened it. Mistakes happen, and who really scrutinises window envelopes that closely before ripping them open?
Okay, two people think I should have checked the address, and about 30 agree is was a reasonable mistake. Yay me!
And, yes, jerk neighbor is not getting any further neighborly efforts from me.
NO CHRISTMAS COOKIES FOR YOU!
another vote for “the guy is an asshole.” Typically people like that are so pathetically impotent that they have to latch onto any tiny slight so they have reason (in their minds) to go ballistic on someone. If I had to take a guess, the dude’s married to a henpecking battle-axe and took his lack of any decision-making ability out on you.
of course, some people are just self-centered shitbags. Back when I was in high-school, I was driving down a connecting road elsewhere in my city. just ahead of me I saw a dog nearly get hit by a car. as I drove up, the dog (sub-1-year-old black lab) was panicking in the middle of the road. I got out and the dog calmed down as I walked up. I checked the tag and he only had a tag for a vet clinic on his collar, no license or owner info. So I took the dog home and tried to call the vet on the tag, but it was late and they were closed. my mother took the dog to work the next morning, and got hold of the vet who then called the owner to let them know the dog was found and to call my mother to get the dog. So this cunt calls and just immediately starts bitching about how sad her little brat daughter was that the dog was gone and “why didn’t I just go door to door asking who the dog belonged to.” Gee, bitch, you’re welcome for me making sure your dog wasn’t splattered into cherry pie. Then how would your little snot-nose brat feel? Maybe if you had put at least a fucking owner tag on the dog I could have done that.
and because I know at least one of you will bring it up, there was never any talk or expectation of a “reward.”
No, I wouldn’t get bent out of shape over it. It’s one of those things like someone bumping the trash can at the curb while backing out of the driveway–yes, you really should be more careful, but no harm, no foul.
We get mail for the guy across the street every month or two. Most things it’s really obvious that it’s not ours because we don’t deal with those companies/organizations, but sometimes it’s stuff like utility/phone bills. Most of these get caught when we’re bringing in and sorting the mail, but sometimes we’re on autopilot and not really paying attention.
Your neighbor is insane. Better you know now. The people in this thread suggesting that’s you have some sort of imputed duty to scan the addresses of the mail in your box before opening it just in case it’s misaddressed are being absurd. It’s not your problem or your responsibility.
The silver lining is that you know for sure that you have a crazy neighbor. Forewarned is forearmed in dealing with him in the future.
You never know what people will do, I would also just have thrown it out. If I see a letter delivered to me by accident and I don’t open it, I just toss it back in a mailbox. If I open it, I just discard it.
You have just now made an enemy over a trivial thing. Sure it wasn’t the OP fault but the damage is done. If you had thrown it out, the neighbor would’ve been out a few bucks in a late charge and peace would reign. Now??? Well…Who knows
I’m surprised so many people don’t check before opening their mail, but I’ve also lived in apartments for years and regularly get mail for previous tenants or neighbors. I don’t think it was a huge deal and your neighbor was out of line, but it really wouldn’t occur to me to not see if the piece of mail in my hand was addressed to my household.
I agree with LHOD on this one. My justification, of course, is the completely unassailable argument that “he started it” (kids are pretty smart sometimes, you know).