[spike021]

You probably can't, honestly.

My apartment, on a weekly basis, gets mail to roughly 3-5 previous inhabitants. As in, exact same address, etc.

Sometimes even bills from insurance companies or other important mail.

I think when you move you're supposed to notify USPS to forward mail to your new address (probably also inform important mailers of the move as well) but from what I've seen they don't propagate the address changes very well.

I mean, sure, those previous inhabitants may not have notified USPS at all, but I find that hard to believe.

[elliottcarlson]

USPS only forwards the mail for one year after notification. After that any mail that is still marked for that address will be delivered there. Ideally you would have notified all relevant parties at that point.

Also a lot of junk mail will be addressed to the name "or current resident"

[DashRattlesnake]

However, the forwarding database is apparently pretty easy to get access to. Junk mailers will query it and update their list with your new address.

[thaumasiotes]

> I think when you move you're supposed to notify USPS to forward mail to your new address

> sure, those previous inhabitants may not have notified USPS at all, but I find that hard to believe

I certainly wouldn't. Why would I notify the USPS that I moved? I would notify my contacts (or much more likely, they'd ask me for my address in the event they wanted to send me something). A delivery service is for delivering things to addresses, not to people.

[dragonwriter]

> A delivery service is for delivering things to addresses, not to people.

A delivery service is for delivering things to people; addresses are just a tool for locating the perosn you are trying to get the thing delivered to.

[thaumasiotes]

Try getting them to deliver to a person using some other location than an address, such as "wherever he happens to be". It can't be their purpose to do something they're not able to do.

If I have something mailed to me at my office, are you claiming the post office hasn't made a mistake when they deliver it to my home?

[dragonwriter]

> Try getting them to deliver to a person using some other location than an address

So, like, General Delivery?

> If I have something mailed to me at my office, are you claiming the post office hasn't made a mistake when they deliver it to my home?

There's a question of principal/agent there, so maybe, maybe not.

OTOH, I'll maintain that the post office is not making a mistake when it keeps delivering my mail from my employer to me at my actual address, even though they keep sending it to an address which resembles mine only in that the street name and zip code are the same, and two of the four numbers in the street address they use also appear (in different positions) in my actual address.

Which I suppose I should go talk to HR about again.

[thaumasiotes]

General Delivery is meant for the use of people who don't have an address (or as a substitute for a PO Box), and has to be arranged by the recipient, and the recipient may only receive General Delivery at a single location. So no, not like General Delivery -- General Delivery is an address, the address of the post office offering it, which is where the person receives their mail.

[brewdad]

What happens when you miss giving notice to one of your contacts? What if your contact doesn't update their records right away? How do you get the timing just right? Not having your mail sent to a new address before you move in nor having any mail arrive after you've left your old address?

There is value in updating your address. Ideally, you won't need a year to get things sorted, but a couple of months is certainly valuable.

[thaumasiotes]

>> much more likely, they'd ask me for my address in the event they wanted to send me something

You're trying to invoke the fear that the only method of contacting your friend is to write to the last address you knew for them. That was true once; it has no particular relationship to the modern day.

Even when it was true, though, postal services were a system for delivering mail to places, not to people. If your friend moved and you didn't know that, it was difficult to contact them.