Return to sender

Return to sender, address unknown

No such number, no such zone

Where ever I have lived, there has always been mail for the previous occupant. Sometimes for years. I am never quite sure what to do with it - to chuck it out, to return to sender? Then what do you write. I've honed it down to :

Return to sender, addressee unknown (sorry Elvis, had to change it).

I'm thinking of getting a stamp so I don't have to write it or print off some labels.

Here, we have the landlord's address so that's easy - a simple case of redirecting it. But the previous occupants didn't leave us their details. So I spend time writing "person unknown, return to sender" and sticking them in the mail box. 

However, as the Post Office has raised it's stamp prices ASTRONOMICALLY, I wonder who pays for the return to sender? And do the post office actually bother to do the return or do they just bin the letters. I've read that it all goes to a massive depot in Belfast to be sorted out.

We also get huge amounts of junk mail and at least 4 charity bag thingies a week. Some people put the junk mail in the pre-paid envelopes and send it back - hoping their address will be removed from the sender's database - nah I don't believe that works. So I just dump it in the recycling....so much trash created. 

And don't get me started on phone calls. At least 6 a day around 11am. Thank god for answering machines is all I can say.

What do you do? Ignore it all? Don't give a toss? Get into a furious rage? 

P.S. I know this is just a minor thing. This post was going to be a rant at the rise in stamp prices but the P.O. are doing the environment a favour - the cost of sending Xmas cards has risen so much now that we will dramatically reduce how many we send ...less cards, less trees chopped down, less fuel to make and send cards around, less paper cuts opening cards, fewer posties on the roads (?!?), win win.