Mail Matters in StepLand

Now that the holiday season is in full swing, I seem to get more mail for Bratty and SO's ex (Darth Vader) than I do for myself.

Yesterday's mail illustrates this example:

- For SO - a couple of bills, a couple of college alumni newsletters

- For Bratty - Jury Duty (he he he) - probably because she never changed her registered address so the county still thinks she lives here

- For Darth Vader - about 10 shopping catalogs (she was a shopaholic when they were married and just loves mail order crap)

- For me - nothing, unless you count the Spectrum cable 'resident' offer

The Bratty jury duty notice I am letting SO deal with - I assume he'll just tell her to respond with 'I've moved out of the county' and update her address.

Any ideas on how to stop Darth Vaders' junk mail from coming here? She has never lived here (I'm assuming her name somehow got attached to this address because of the alimony SO continues to pay) and it isn't real mail she gets here, just junk mail. But I'm getting sick of these catalogs clogging up our recycle (especially this time of year). We can't return to sender since it is pre-sorted bulk mail - the post office won't do anything other than toss it.

Has this ever happened to anyone and any ideas on how to stop it? Can I go to our local post office and talk to the postmaster? Is that a real thing, a postmaster? LOL.

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Do an address change for her?

Tried Online

But you can't do a change of address for someone else, at least not online. They ask for a credit card and then there is a verification process.

Unsubscribe and save a tree.

Unsubscribe and save a tree. https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/how-stop-junk-mail

I had our mail down to almost nothing, then my stupid ex decided to give $10 to a charity. We got tons of junk mail for a while after that, and I had to start over. It would have been better to plunk money into the red bucket or something. That charity spent more than ten bucks mailing crap to us.

THANK YOU!

This should help I think...

You may never stop it. After

You may never stop it. After we married we bought a house. We get unsolicited mail for my SD who never lived here. It's weird in that it's just for one SD and not the other.

The last owner of our house was not very good in changing his address. After his mail forwarding time ended, we'd get things like his brokerage statements. I handed them back to the mailman and he said they'd return it to sender with a note that the addressee was no longer at this address. They might only do that for first class mail though.

If it's a catalog, I might try calling their 800 number and asking that their mail no longer be sent to your house.

Yeah I'm not sure how DV's

Yeah I'm not sure how DV's name got attached to this address. Yes, we can't just write 'return to sender - wrong addressee' on bulk mail.

Right now there is an avalanche. I will try the link Ispo posted above though it will probably take some time to notice any different.

As for Bratty, she used to have all her mail come here while she was in college (which was fine). Most of it stopped a couple of years ago except a few random coupons. And she changed her car registration after she got a ticket and it went to us. SO was out of town so I opened it (thinking it was legitimately ours) but it was Bratty's. I had to text that to SO when he was on an overseas business trip - but maybe didn't change her voter registration address which is what I think the county goes by for jury duty 'volunteers'.

YSD never changed her address

YSD never changed her address after moving out, so we had to deal with all her mail and bill collectors calling for her. After a few months (and DH not wanting to handle it), I filled a shopping bag with her mail, took it to the post office, and the clerk worked some USPS magic that fixed the problem. I also started giving the bill collectors the address and phone number of YSD's bf.

Yah, bill collectors are fun.

Yah, bill collectors are fun. DH was livid when he heard me give SS's number to a bill collector. His unpaid bill is not my responsibility and I'm not going to be troubled over it. DH and I even paid SS'scell phone bill (which irritated me), so I felt just fine giving out that number.

I also gave bill collectors my own daughter's number too at one point. Natural consequences.

We regularly get one piece of college alumni mail for DH's ex. She's never lived in our state, much less this house. I've met her only once or twice so she doesn't take up any space in my head. Easy enough to trash/recycle.