AIBU to throw away packages for previous residents?

[CecilieRose]

I've started to get really pissed off by the number of letters and packages addressed to previous residents. I'm quite sick at the moment and I'm getting tired of having to make trips to the nearest postbox (a 30 minute round trip walking, almost) to return things to sender. Would it be awful to start throwing them away? I've lived here for seven months. I always arrange redirections for my post, and I don't see why I should keep going out of my way for people who didn't bother to do that. Maybe a few weeks after moving is acceptable, in case there's a gap before the redirection kicks in, but I'm getting letters for one particular person several times a week, and have just been interrupted on a work call to open the door for one of his Amazon parcels! How hard is it to sort this stuff out instead of expecting other people to help you? It just feels so entitled.

AIBU to start throwing anything that isn't addressed to me straight in the bin?

Can you leave the parcels and letters in the common area. Hopefully, that might also lower the tone and management might contact previous resident?

@Cocogreen

As PPs have said - open a parcel and find an email address or phone number. Contact them and ask them to come and get it all or you're binning it.

Amazon parcels don't even have a dispatch note in now so there's no email or phone number. In fact I don't think any of my mail comes with my email or phone number in it.

I would try and catch the postie one day and ask him personally not to post the old stuff in your letterbox.

Amazon packages don't have a dispatch note.

I'd stop posting them on. Only way they'll redirect is if they stop getting the parcels.

Don't accept any parcels. If they turn up just say no this isn't me I can't take this. When it comes to post I'd bin it.

If management took down your signs about not accepting post for that person and as packages are simply left outside your door, is there a way if just marking them as not known at this address, and leaving them on the floor by the post boxes? If management gave an issue with that, it’s not your responsibility. Put it on them to deal with.

I paid to have my mail redirected after I moved, but a lot of it was still delivered to my old address. It's not necessarily the fault of the previous occupant

They're probably still sending them to you as you're doing the hard work of sending it on or back! I'd give them to a charity shop or something but stop sending on

Quite how someone hasn't twigged the stuff they are buying on amazon hasn't been delivered (even after receiving the 'your item was delivered' email), and not only one but multiple times is odd.
You'd go and check your account address settings after the first item didn't appear.
It must be a friend/relative sending a surprise gift & has forgotten to update their saved details to their new address or they haven't told the weird relative who keeps sending them random amazon crap that they have moved.

Once you've lived in a new place for a reasonable amount of time you should be opening all mail that is still coming to you - particularly if it is for a before previous owner. You are perfectly allowed to as long as you are not doing it for malicious purposes.
And it lets you deal with the previous owners who are running away from debts before you get bailiffs knocking on your door early in the morning and having to prove you are you and not them and that they no longer live here and yes the car in the drive is yours and not theirs, all while trying to get ready for work/kids to school etc.

We still get the occasional post to the last owner of this house and he died 12 years ago !
The worse offender is Virgin money who sends him (!) a letter telling him to log into his a/c for a statement. Yes , I did eventually open a letter to get a phone number to contact them , but they won't stop because he hasn't told them not to send , and I cannot send proof via a death certificate . In the bin they go.

DD got a couple of parcels for a previous tenant. She opened them, found the delivery notes, and took the trouble to contact the companies to try to find where to return to. Both companies said they would follow up and to not bother to return! She got a lovely pair of trainers in her size, and a flower pot!

Another vote here to leave everything in a very untidy pile in the lobby, make it the building managements problem.

I've been here 20 years and still get stuff for the previous owner. It just goes in the recycling bin now with all the other junk the Post Office delivers.

We're getting contact lens monthly from Boots too at the holiday let although the recipient is long gone, there was at least one owner after her! I doubt she's even still alive. Yes I've tried returning them as "gone away" but still they come. I have no idea how they are paid for and you'd think after 8 years someone should surely have noticed?.

Sadly I can't think of a use for them so they too get recycled as far as possible and what I can't recycle gets binned.

@Elphame I'd expect someone to realise they were still paying for a subscription they weren't recieving but you never know. It may well be Boots that has cocked up and rather than update their address has created a secondary order for their new address or something stupid like that and this old one will remain active forevermore.

@Jennalong banks are very bad for this I've found. They claim they do not have a process for dealing with "they've moved and haven't told you their new address", even though it must be a regular occurrence. They also don't take too kindly to you suggesting to them that perhaps they could pop that idea in the company suggestion box and they might get a nice thankyou bonus for it 🙂
What does work is this. Telling them you need to speak to their manager as this needs to be sorted and sorted now - and you tell them that this will be sorted or else your next step is to report them to the FCA/ombudsman and the ICO as they are continuing to send you someone's personal financial information despite being told that they no longer have any connection to this address. And as this is unlikely to be a unique occurance it would negligent of them to not have a procedure in place to deal with this. Oddly they listen then and suddenly discover that there is a man in some obscure department who can do what is needed (and you get £100 compensation for the trouble - well I did anyway)

My point was that we'd never lived at that address, it was the sending companies that made the mistake.

I would bag them all up - every bit. Then, when it suits you to pass a postbox, scribble out the the addresses and write ‘RTS’ in big letters on the front, then shove them back in the box. That’s all that is needed. No need to return to them, open them, bin them etc.

That way 1) Royal Mail will return the mail to senders where possible; 2) you have minimal inconvenience; 3) they’ll soon learn that their laziness means they need to sort out a redirection.