Usps

In my mailbox today, I have many pieces of junk mail from the past few weeks, marked “Refused”, plus the following letter I wrote to the Charlton Postmaster.

March 26, 2007

Dear Postmaster,

In accordance with DMM 508, section 1.1.4, or any other applicable postal regulation, I hereby request that you not deliver to either of us any mail from any of the following addresses, for the maximum length of time that such an order can be good for. We do not want mail from any of these places, and did not ask for it. Thank you.

I mentioned that it was possible to set up filters on incoming postal mail. I haven’t done this yet, but apparently the way to do this is via USPS DMM 508 §8.1.1, which says that “an addressee who receives a solicited or unsolicited advertisement offering for sale matter that, in the addressee’s sole discretion, is ‘erotically arousing or sexually provocative,’ may, by completing Form 1500, obtain a prohibitory order directing the mailer of the advertisement to refrain from making further mailings to that addressee.”

When I don’t outright refuse junk mail, sometimes I’ll take some of the junk mail I’ve received, remove personally identifying information from it, and stuff it into the next available Business Reply Mail (postage will be paid by addressee) junk mail return envelope I find, and drop it in the mail. I hope to exceed the one ounce limit so that they need to pay extra postage.

I’m just very sick of junk mail. I don’t allow random offers from companies to show up in my email box, so why should I need to deal with them in my postal mail box? Unfortunately, setting up filters on your physical mail box is much more difficult than setting them up on an email box. (It is possible, however, and I plan to do so in the near future if I continue to get more junk as companies discover our address.)

“After delivery, an addressee may mark a mailpiece “Refused” and return it within a reasonable time, if the piece or any attachment is not opened.” — USPS DMM 508 §1.1.3

I’ve been in the habit lately of refusing all my junk mail. I certainly don’t want to pay for removing the trash I get in the mail. Why not make the sender pay for it? (Undeliverable first class mail will get returned to the sender, while undeliverable presorted standard mail (which is most junk mail) will get disposed of by the USPS. That’s just a part of the service that a mailer is buying when paying postage.)

I think next year, I may just send email Christmas cards instead.

What a pain.

Some people I know have moved since last year. Some of you more than once. I’m working on updating our contact database for the purpose of sending Christmas cards out. If you think we may not have your physical mail address, and you’d like a Christmas card from us, then please email your address to pete@cooperjr.name.

Thank you.