Hey, two years ago–we had just moved–we got the previous occupants’ MAIL-IN BALLOTS. Talk about an opportunity!
You’d think the PO would be extra careful about things like that.
I’m used to checking my mail because I have to sort out what goes to my SO and what goes to me, plus make sure that our letter carrier didn’t give us anything that should have gone into the neighbor’s box. If I had a setup like the OP’s, and a letter carrier who could routinely distinguish 1902, 1903 and 1905, I wouldn’t check to make sure anything was addressed to me.
I think it depends on where you live. My husband and I have moved a decent bit and haven’t been in our place that long; we check. My parents have lived in their house for about thirty years; they don’t get mis-addressed mail very often and probably stopped scrutinizing their mail 20 years ago.
It’s an honest mistake. I could totally see me opening a neighbor’s bill, especially if it’s one from a company we deal with that arrives the same day ours usually does.
Neighbor’s a dick.
Don’t throw out the next misdirected piece, though - that’s mail tampering. Scribble “not at this address” and drop it in a mailbox somewhere; it’ll get redelivered. Preferably one a few towns away, where the redelivery time will be an extra day days.
If you want to really have fun, scribble “no such person at this address, return to sender”. Technically true (Dickface does NOT live at your address, after all).
Of course, if you’ve actually opened the envelope as in this scenario, the shredder might be the most tolerable option, sigh…
I do hope the neighbor realizes he overreacted just a tad, and apologizes.
Get a box fill it with a bunch of your old used sex toys, wrap it in brown paper and address it to your neighbor. Take it over and say this was delivered to your house by mistake. Also point out that you were careful to look at the address this time and wish him a good day.
Well, yes, ideally you would have checked the address before opening the letter – but not doing so is a reasonable mistake, and your neighbour should have treated it as such.
I have opened my neighbor’s mail after it was delivered to me by accident. My neighbor has opened my mail after it was delivered to her by accident.
No big deal.
Starving - your neighbor is a jerk and completely over-reacted to a simple mistake that anyone can make.
Obviously the OP did the right thing, and the neighbor was a jerk.
I am a bit discouraged by the number of people who would toss someone else’s mail in the shredder if they had opened it accidentally, though. Why not just drop it off at the correct address, or if that is totally inconvenient, tape it up and drop it back in the mail with a notation like “Delivered to wrong address” or something? Or if you totally brutalized the envelope when you opened it, write a little explanatory note, put the whole thing in a new envelope, write the correct address on it, put a stamp on it and mail it?
No one is going to investigate you for a federal crime over a piece of accidentally opened mail, and 99 out of 100 people will be grateful, or at least not angry. If you come across the 1 out of 100 who is like the OP’s neighbor, you will at least get a good story to tell your friends about the insane idiot whose mail you accidentally opened.
I suppose I could understand throwing it away if it was some useless piece of junk mail, but if someone were to throw away someone else’s credit card bill, for example, just because they didn’t want to risk the true recipient not understanding why they accidentally opened their mail, or that you just couldn’t be bothered to do something considerate for someone else, that would strike me as being right up there on the jerkish scale with the OP’s neighbor.
I wouldn’t have been angry. I would have grumbled a bit about being more careful before opening envelopes or something, but it would have been weak and mostly thankful. I come from a home where keeping mail separate and private was very important - my dad was always super-weird about it, so I’ve been in the habit of checking the addressee before opening since I was a kid.
So you really still get paper bills and write checks and mail them back to various companies?
I usually look at the address on an envelope before I open it, but if it the envelope looks similar to one I get regularly (as in the OP’s case - he also gets bills from Verizon), it is perfectly understandable to open it by mistake, and the neighbour was being unreasonable.
In the future, you are justified in not walking his mail over if you get more of it, but just throwing it back in your mailbox with a “wrong address” note on it.
Also, the Christmas cookies that you were going to give to your neighbour can be sent to me instead.
I occasionally get my neighbor’s mail and just stick it in their mailbox (we aren’t on chatting terms, no bad feelings, just no contact). Twice this year I got what Mr. Sali refers to as a “rubber dick” catalog. 
Maybe one of them doesn’t want to browse or pay online, and prefers to send in an order with an old fashioned check or money order.