I will admit now that I purposely try to piss off our mailman. This is a stupid and dangerous thing to do but somehow I can't find myself caring. Let me explain...
Moving into an REO comes with several interesting problems, some of which I've detailed earlier. The most perplexing part of not knowing the former owners or how to contact them generally centers around the mail...or the police when they surround your house looking for the previous owner. This happened to me a few days after we bought the house while I was waiting for the carpet guys. While waiting I noticed want looked like multiple shadows going around the side of the house and some gathering near the front door. Curious, I went to the front door and opened it as they were preparing to knock. At least I assume they were preparing to knock. I was not expecting to see several sheriffs with itchy hands fingering their weapons. After several minutes of explaining and showing multiple forms of I.D., it was determined that I was, indeed, who I said I was. Which, as the smartest of the bunch said, "That would explain why the car out front was registered to a different person than they were looking for." They searched the house to verify that I was not hiding the previous resident and did not have any evidence that might be material to why they were looking for him. And after instilling in me that finding this person was of the most serious matter and I should contact them if I do see him, they decided to leave. All this before we even met the neighbors.
The mailman seems to have a similar problem as he keeps delivering the mail for that person to the house. This was to be expected for the first few months, I thought, and each time I would write upon the mail "Return to Sender. Does not live at this address. No known forwarding address." and return them to the mailbox. This was almost two years ago and we receive the same amount of mail for this mysterious previous residence as we did the first week. Mind you this was after the house was abandoned for several months so its not like he doesn't know. I've met our surly mailman. Tried to be friendly, say hi, but all he can manage is a gruff nod and a glare. I'm not sure what I've done to anger him but clearly delivering our mail is a very tedious and arduous task, obviously deserving of great praise and adulation. Regardless, I appeared to have made an enemy of him long before I actual did anything to deserve it. About a year into owning the house, he left a note in our mailbox asking us to move the trash cans to the opposite side of our driveway. Let me add that our trash cans were nowhere near the mailbox. It just happens that our house is on the curve of the street, so where they were placed would block him from an easy angle getaway to the next house. Of course we acquiesced to his request, but it didn't seem to help much. Our mailman doesn't arrive until after the garbage truck and the garbage truck people rarely set the trash cans down where we put them. It seemed pointless to point this out to our mailman and rather than piss off the garbage truck people complaining they are setting it down too close to our mailman's getaway exit, we have accepted that our mailman thinks we're jerks.
Once you've accepted this, its hard to care about making his job easier. Will it make him bring the proper mail to our house and stop delivering the previous residents court summons and collections letters? Probably not. Will it make him more friendly and deliver our mail before 7pm? Probably not. In all fairness, he probably is underpaid, over worked, and doesn't have the time to even look at the address he's delivering it to. It might even be pre-sorted at the office, so really I have only the sorting machine to be angry at. In either case, I have clearly made an enemy of the mailman at the expense of staying friends with the garbage men.
Yesterday, my husband texted me with the question: "Was there a big pile of rocks in front of the house when you left?"
Thinking hard as I am rarely observant in the morning, I responded with a fairly certain, "No. Picture?"
Ah, no. Shit. The garbage men are not going to like that. Neither will the mailman. <insert impressive and fairly creative swearing regarding the genetic lineage of the person who decided to dump the rock pile there>
After much discussion, my husband persuaded the landscapers to move the rocks, but not all of it and certainly not in time for the garbage truck nor the mailman. While they did take our garbage, I imagine we have probably made them fairly grumpy with our clearly inconsiderate rock pile. It is possible we have acquired another enemy. I'm uncertain how to soothe the garbage men after this failure on our part. I can't imagine leaving fresh baked cookies on top of the garbage can with a note will be expectable. Perhaps instead we should complain about where they put the garbage cans and try to win back the affections of our surly mailman.
Moving into an REO comes with several interesting problems, some of which I've detailed earlier. The most perplexing part of not knowing the former owners or how to contact them generally centers around the mail...or the police when they surround your house looking for the previous owner. This happened to me a few days after we bought the house while I was waiting for the carpet guys. While waiting I noticed want looked like multiple shadows going around the side of the house and some gathering near the front door. Curious, I went to the front door and opened it as they were preparing to knock. At least I assume they were preparing to knock. I was not expecting to see several sheriffs with itchy hands fingering their weapons. After several minutes of explaining and showing multiple forms of I.D., it was determined that I was, indeed, who I said I was. Which, as the smartest of the bunch said, "That would explain why the car out front was registered to a different person than they were looking for." They searched the house to verify that I was not hiding the previous resident and did not have any evidence that might be material to why they were looking for him. And after instilling in me that finding this person was of the most serious matter and I should contact them if I do see him, they decided to leave. All this before we even met the neighbors.
The mailman seems to have a similar problem as he keeps delivering the mail for that person to the house. This was to be expected for the first few months, I thought, and each time I would write upon the mail "Return to Sender. Does not live at this address. No known forwarding address." and return them to the mailbox. This was almost two years ago and we receive the same amount of mail for this mysterious previous residence as we did the first week. Mind you this was after the house was abandoned for several months so its not like he doesn't know. I've met our surly mailman. Tried to be friendly, say hi, but all he can manage is a gruff nod and a glare. I'm not sure what I've done to anger him but clearly delivering our mail is a very tedious and arduous task, obviously deserving of great praise and adulation. Regardless, I appeared to have made an enemy of him long before I actual did anything to deserve it. About a year into owning the house, he left a note in our mailbox asking us to move the trash cans to the opposite side of our driveway. Let me add that our trash cans were nowhere near the mailbox. It just happens that our house is on the curve of the street, so where they were placed would block him from an easy angle getaway to the next house. Of course we acquiesced to his request, but it didn't seem to help much. Our mailman doesn't arrive until after the garbage truck and the garbage truck people rarely set the trash cans down where we put them. It seemed pointless to point this out to our mailman and rather than piss off the garbage truck people complaining they are setting it down too close to our mailman's getaway exit, we have accepted that our mailman thinks we're jerks.
Once you've accepted this, its hard to care about making his job easier. Will it make him bring the proper mail to our house and stop delivering the previous residents court summons and collections letters? Probably not. Will it make him more friendly and deliver our mail before 7pm? Probably not. In all fairness, he probably is underpaid, over worked, and doesn't have the time to even look at the address he's delivering it to. It might even be pre-sorted at the office, so really I have only the sorting machine to be angry at. In either case, I have clearly made an enemy of the mailman at the expense of staying friends with the garbage men.
Yesterday, my husband texted me with the question: "Was there a big pile of rocks in front of the house when you left?"
Thinking hard as I am rarely observant in the morning, I responded with a fairly certain, "No. Picture?"
 |
| His Response |
After much discussion, my husband persuaded the landscapers to move the rocks, but not all of it and certainly not in time for the garbage truck nor the mailman. While they did take our garbage, I imagine we have probably made them fairly grumpy with our clearly inconsiderate rock pile. It is possible we have acquired another enemy. I'm uncertain how to soothe the garbage men after this failure on our part. I can't imagine leaving fresh baked cookies on top of the garbage can with a note will be expectable. Perhaps instead we should complain about where they put the garbage cans and try to win back the affections of our surly mailman.
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