junk mail

[gusl]

My upstairs neighbor Nick started making "No Unaddressed Mail" plaques, and made it easy for us to stop getting junk mail, by promising to stick a plaque on your mailbox if you write your box number on a sheet of paper. So I replaced my ghetto paper-and-pen sign with a nice plaque. I'm actually surprised this movement didn't happen years earlier, given that I live in possibly the most hippie neighborhood in Canada. (Maybe hippies don't live in apartment buildings?)

I just met my mail carrier, who was absolutely delighted, in part because she has less stuff to carry. She's not allowed to ask people to do this, and said that the Post Office considers admail much more important than regular mail; and that they don't even recycle left-overs, but actually burn them instead. So it sounds like you can go to the post office and pay them to spam a whole neighborhood. I wonder what would happen if one sent a flyer for www.reddotcampaign.ca (how sneaky would it have to be)? Has anyone explored the charge of corruption of a public institution?

Apparently mail carriers have keys to many apartment buildings! Maybe they should be the modern butler.

UPDATE: I just saw Nick again, and 13 out of 36 already have plaques. Not bad for 48 hours. Another resident informed me that the former management removed his red dot, for aesthetic reasons or something!

UPDATE (24 July): 24 out of the 36 have signed up, and all have plaques.

Comments

[isomorphisms.livejournal.com]

We have those in my building; the only reason I don't have one in my mailbox is because every now and again Mark's Work Wearhouse sends out $10 coupons as junk mail, and that's the only place where I buy pants. I'd love to put out a "no unaddressed mail, except from Mark's" sign on my box.

[bhudson.livejournal.com]

I recall that this is illegal in the US -- the mail carrier must deliver all the mail.

[gustavolacerda.livejournal.com]

even unaddressed mail??

[gwillen.livejournal.com]

What is meant by "unaddressed mail"? I don't think there's any such thing in the US as mail without an address; the closest equivalent is mail with an address but no name, or "current resident". I believe the postal carrier is indeed required by law to deliver such mail, but I am not 100% sure.

[gustavolacerda.livejournal.com]

I was thinking, mail with no address at all... which I've definitely received in Canada.