"I live part-time in a populated coastal area, in a neighborhood for which the only USPS presence is a counter inside a Hallmark store."

I certainly find this hard to believe wondering it it's made up fiction or simply a result of the mind growing old. To think a Hallmark store would exist in a city to small for a post office is a stretch of the imagination.

I watch "Nic and Joe's road trip" on you tube who drive around America touring small towns, and many nearly ghost town's with post offices, (and Dollar general stores), but never saw a hallmark store on any of his road trips. I don't see any connection with your story of limited knowledge to any rural area in America.

With a quick search it seems California only has one Contract postal unit operating out of a hallmark store called "Steve's Hallmark" with a post office a few miles to the north and another to the south of Steve's. FWIW, a contract postal unit is not a post office with only limited services and will have the official post office in close proximity.

Why does it matter? It doesn't.

sushipup, I just learned from a search that a few months ago, the City Council adopted a new law allowing street addresses. One hit said that it was apparently in response to state safety requirements related to helping location finding for emergency response dispatches. Another said that while assigned numbering and display standards would be consistent with what's done elsewhere, there remained a sentiment that USPS delivery services would continue with PO boxes.

I've always thought this tradition to be rather dumb and not cute or quaint. I remember once trying to find someone's house with directions akin to what might have been used in the Middle Ages in an urban setting. Turn left from Ocean Street at X restaurant, then right at the third intersection. (big bushy tree (no street sign). Continue until the house on the left with the bright red door. Turn left, it's the third house on the left from the corner. Yeah, right.

A bit easier now with GPS and long/lat coordinates to find streets and houses but still harder than it needs to be.

Apparently, I am not making myself understood. I would not care if mail addressed to my residence first went through Tierra del Fuego, IF IT FINALLY GOT TO ME.

Mail addressed to my street address, where I reside and pay taxes will never ever ever reach me.

Ditto with others who reside in houses (not a condo or an apartment development with a gang of identical locked rectangular tubes at the beginning of a development. Each wooden house has a traditional domed mailbox at the roadside in front of their house. None look alike. My residence Number is on mine. It has been this way for over 40 years.

UNFORTUNATELY, like ledges in Portland harbor, it seems to be ”local knowkedge.”

Old municipalities. Nothing newly bulging at the seams. Each municipality has a similar brick PO biulding with a granite arch doorway entrance, an ample parking lot. PO Boxes inside.

But historically, the USPS mail for our little wooded residential road off the state highway has always had its mail delivered by the adjacent municipality’s P O delivery person. If someone, whether new acquaintance, old classmate from Minnesota, chief of police, Superman, or Beaver’s mom sends me mail to my residential address and does not know the secret oddities of the local USPS mail delivery, I will NOT receive that note, birthday card, bill, summons or winning lottery ticket.

It is important because there are pieces of mail that I do not receive. I have missed notices of public hearings (New Pig Farm coming next door to you!) and *have missed important legal information*.

[Typos from dry air & static, sorry.]

It has nothing to do with USPS finances, staffing or budget.

(I will soon add more detail.)

PS Yes, I have lived in an area with a little post office in a gift shop. But we got our mail delivered in those days to our home, rural free delivery, RFD. This is nothing like the situation to which I am referring. Far from it.

As an example

Yes, there are many areas here where you only get mail after it hits the news. I cringe when something is shipped usps and we live in an old established neighborhood.

Forget the ”rain sleet snow” crap.

Do you have a local PO? It is entirely possible to have a PO who does not do street delivery. The postal address town will be what ever PO it is that has the delivery staff who drive around and deliver. Really remote locations can have amazingly creative systems to get your mail to you.

So we have no PO and the closest PO does not do delivery so our mail people come from a town across the river from us-circuitous trip. The largest local PO delivers to an enormous area of small communities. The mapping involved is astonishing. they actually deliver to the town where my closest PO is.

Do be aware that our present system does not get any tax dollars. That has been the case since 1971. There is a fund they can access for short falls but it has to be paid back.

I have said this before and not been believed but the present changes are meant to make people think the PO is inefficient and crazy and not working so it can be dismantled and the money making parts privatized. It has long been a project by a certain sector.

patriciae

" I certainly find this hard to believe"

kevin, your posts make it abundantly clear, over and over, that you're often stumped and lacking understanding/knowledge on more topics than not.

When facing the unknown, which happens often, you take words too literally. Try UPS Store as an equivalent alternative. Those all offer most services akin to what's in a post office for retail customers. My comment was there was no actual USPS post office location but rather a type of ersatz alternative. For mail delivery or even counter services, it doesn't matter, it came to mind as a curiousity because of the particular issue I was dealing with.

Feel better now? You can keep searching until the library closes and you have to leave.

petalique, is the problem that without an address including such information as seems to be arbitrarily and idiosyncratically required, mail pieces don't reach your mailbox?

If you always provide the idiosyncratic address to third parties, how does the problem happen?

🔺EDITED A BIT for clarity.🔺

See an example with map below. Not my residence, only to illustrate.

EXAMPLE: Concord and Manchester New Hampshire are two cities, perhaps 10 or 15 miles apart.

This is to illustrate. If, say, I and my neighbors live off wooded road off a state highway, in Concord, NH but our mail would only reach us if addressed to our residential street address, and only if the nearby, adjacent city’s name and zip code where written on the envelope beneath my name and street address.

Is this now clear?

Petal

88 Maple Road

Concord, NH 12345

(would never get to me, even if it is my tax bill from my town.;

It would need to be addressed to

Petal

88 Maple Road

Manchester, NH 67899

The postal carrier, in a Jeep from the Manchester, NH postal office would deliver our mail, EVEN if I live and vote and pay taxes in Concord, NH.

Any mail to me must then be addressed to me for Manchester,NH. *I* would need to be sure all businesses, family, government and friends put the correct mail address, next city over, on the envelope, or I would never see the mail for me.

If someone looks me up on the tax rolls, they would see my residential address, but have no way of knowing the local knowledge oddities of the regional postal delivery.

🔺If I did not know someone was going to mail me a letter, I would not be able to warn them to put the adjacent municipality’s TOWN and ZIP CODE in the address.

(Do you know and are you able to divine when some new entity is going to mail you something? A fine? A ticket? A summons? A gift?)

Clear now? Clear why it might matter very much?

ETA Both municipalities are fairly equivalent in size, population and economic resources. Two distinct municipalities. Two different zip codes.

This mail delivery quirk is rigid. Itdates back to some old old land swap about 100 years ago. LOCAL KNOWLEDGE. Illogical.

Does your address have a zip code? Does it match the town you live in, or the other town?

Is your address in an incorporated area?

You're describing a "mailing address", is that it?

It's not unusual for locations outside of a city's limit, to have a mail address for a place that's not where their property is located.

The area I live in is not within city limits. My area has a name but it's not a legitimate name used by the USPS or shippers, etc. So my address is

Elmer

88 Maple Road

Anywhere, California

Even though I don't live in Anywhere, don't vote in Anywhere elections, and people in my general area would say I live in "X town" and not Anywhere.

Is your situation similar? If you give people the correct mailing address, how does the problem come about? I don't think people resort to local tax rolls to find mailing addresses. Is that the only conflicting information?

I believe I answered the problem. She cant have mail delivery if she used the name of the town where she resides but can if she used the name of another town where she does not reside but that is perfectly normal. The town name will be where the Post Office local sorting and delivering center is. Her street address does the rest. The mail is usually sorted in a huge central sorting center where the mail is actually sorted to the carrier route or PO box where the mail is delivered. It is trucked amass to that town where the delivery people work from and That place hands out the mail and packages to the individual carriers. If your carrier comes from some adjacent town you use that towns name. Because the whole system is agglomerative as in the result of 200 years or so of delivery and people are resistant to change you can get some weird delivery situations but this one is just a matter of money saving and efficiency. It is hard for a cash strapped Postal Service to provide for the massive growth around towns. Not all that long ago the individual post offices sorted the mail received for their area and the individual carriers sorted the mail to their route. optical scanners seriously fast changed that

patriciae

I'm not sure you did, patricia. I think the routing of mail is determined by the USPS and not necessarily local political boundaries.

There's an incorporated, separate town at the base of the SC Mtns in Silicon Valley named Los Gatos. The town boundaries are fixed and well market off on streets. There are many communities up into the mountains above the actual town, many of which have their own well known names that everyone uses. The zip code and mailing addresses for places at some distance from city limits remains "Los Gatos, CA". Even some communities that are in the bordering county and far from Los Gatos have a Los Gatos mailing address. The USPS has assigned the zip codes to a particular town and as with my home mailing address, that's what's used and not the local name.

But how awkward would it be if Petal’s town and the town her mail is routed through each had a street with the same name? In the town where I live, my street name is the same as a street in the next town 37km away, which is the district hub for goverment services.

It is a regular city. It is within the city limits. Maps depict it as belonging to the city we pay taxes to and where we vote. (I’d love not to have to pay taxes because we do not get full city benefits.)

Both towns are about equivalent in size, population.

My town (where I live, pay taxes, vote) might be better off, but that has nothing to do with the mail or the nearly identical post office buildings and staff. A postal delivery vehicle, from either town would have to access our little hillside road via a state highway — the only access other than drone, vulture, Santa’s sleigh, helicopter, or walking over a wooded mountain.

The town in which I live has its own Post Office and might be a bit closer for vehicles and crows.

Patriciae, I’m not following you.

Both towns have about the same PO set up.

Both POs sort mail.

Both POs have vehicular delivery routes.

Each PO is about the same distance away and the same distance to the highway off which our little road is located.

Six Seven ;-) Six of one seven of the other. (palms up!)

Elmer, pretty good, but

”Is your situation similar? If you give people the correct mailing address, how does the problem come about? I don't think people resort to local tax rolls to find mailing addresses. Is that the only conflicting information?”

I cannot warn people of the mailing address oddity if I do not know that they will be mailing me.

My driver’s license has my Residential address on it. Ditto with DH’s drivers license.

This is probably good because if an accident or emergency, someone like a state trooper would be able to find and notify the spouse at the real honest physical address.

(I know this from sad experience.)

The DMV has my mailing addresses in their database.

The city knows to send our tax bill to the Mailing address

The courthouse (oops!) sent me mail to my residential address. Good, normal guess, but I will not get that mail — summons, warrant, jury duty, notice to appear…. I will be in hell because I have no control over where they or any similar agency mails me such important notices.

It does seem to matter a whole lot.

Let me try again.

Mail goes through a series of sorting facilities depending on where the mail comes from and where it is going to. They have lightening fast optical scanners that uses the part of your address useful to them to route it on to the next step.

Eventually your mail ends up at the local facility where your carrier works Let me say that again. The town where your mail person works and where the postal facility that handles the mail is. It should already be sorted to that person's route. It comes in trays. Packages get final sorting at that facility or used to.

Your mail carrier drives the route and will bring you your mail to your street address. The name of the town you live in and to some degree the zip code may have nothing to do with where your carrier delivers from. That name will be where the local facility is. Mine is in a small town across the river and to the west of me. I never even mentioned local political boundaries because they have nothing to do with anything unless you just happen to live in the same TOWN as the facility. It has nothing to do with where you pay taxes because the mail has nothing to do with taxes.

What ever the carrier puts the mail into varies. It can be one of those huge ganged up boxes in the middle of nowhere or the center of a development. Called NDCBU's. Some people have a long line of boxes somewhere or other.Bottom of a road maybe. They are supposed to have your personal address on them even if they arent on your street. See? And so on.

patriciae

It sounds like you're in the Bermuda Triangle of the US Postal Service. Or, the USPS Twilight Zone. That's unfortunate.

I think if I were in your shoes, I'd get a PO Box. Maybe not with the USPS if that could simply transfer the problem. Maybe one at a UPS Store or Postal Annex kind of place. Most of those offer street addresses and presumably the USPS deals with each location daily.

Good luck.

Patriciae,

Thanks for your effort, but it is not helpful for my situation.

Paragraph 1, yes, mail gets sorted. This is true. I can get mail from anyplace, but IF it is not addressed to Town-Next-to-me, I will NOT receive it, ever.

Your paragraph #2 begs the question. “My mail person” — ambiguous. Cart before horse.

Mail addressed to the town where I live never gets to me. Disappears.

Mail sent to the accepted town next door and that town’s zip (My name, street number, street, but Town-next-to-me, zip for that town) will be delivered.

[Who knows what happens when mail addressed to my residence (my town, zip) arrives at My Town’s Post Office. My town’s Post office should be prepared and personnel trained, or AI bot, to place a label with a deliverable address over that area of the address stating My Town, My Zip. Or, My Town Post Office should get some delivery person to add our road to their route. It would be no more out of their way than it is for Not-My-Town’s Post Office.

Your 3rd paragraph is hard to follow. Begs the question. ”My carrier” ought to depend on my residential address if things were normal and logical. I would be able to get mail sent to my residential address and delivered through my town’s Post Office. In reality ”My carrier” is from Not-My-Town’s Post Office as that Post office is the ONLY one that will deliver mail here and ONLY and IF senders address it, know to address it, to My name, my street number and name, NOT-MY-TOWN, not my zip.

Understand now?

Each town, My Town and the adjacent town (Not-My-Town) are about the same size. They both have nearly identical post offices. Both have rural as well as city deliveries/residences they deliver mail to.

There are NO banks or gangs of mailboxes. Each house has a traditional, ho hum metal mailbox mounted on a post next to the small, narrow road in front of their individual houses. No locks, no keys.

Like this:

http://www.ruralramblings.com/black-rural-mailbox-is-a-pushover/

Since there is difficulty with getting mail deliverd, I think this is an issue for your enclave to take up with your local representatives. Alderperson? Mayor? Postmaster? State or US Congressman?

The peopleon our residential road are not of one mind. They don ’t seem to mind. I would not mind, but, because a COURT sent me a date and an appointment to appear,

AND

because they mailed that notice (to appear) to my literal RESIDENTIAL address which the post office does not recognize (invalid address), I did not get the notice of the court date. Thus I did not appear in court. (I had absolutely no way of knowing.)

Because I did not know to appear and did not appear, the court, believing I was in violation, issued a WARRANT (for my arrest). This was 4 or 5 years ago.

I only found out about this (see narratives above) because I went to the DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles) to renew my driver’s license and could NOT renew it because of the Warrant.

When my DH drove to the courthouse to get a copy of the copy of the complaint, he saw that the Court had mailed it to my Residential address. That is not a valid mailing address per the Post Office. (see all of this explained above.)

Between holidays and inclement weather, I have not been able to clear this up with the court.

My concern right now is explaining to the court why I did not appear 4orfive years ago.

Reason: I did not get the notification and the complaint because the Court mailed it to my Residential Address — not a valid mail address (see above). I have absolutely no control over this. But I am subject to arrest because mail will never be delivered to my Residential address. An unfortunate oddity. The court probably would not have a clue about USPS not delivering to my Residential address. Most people in the US get mail delivered to their residence. I do not know how the Court gets people’s addresses. There is no way I could have forseen that the Court would mail me asort of summons or complaint to my residence. The Post Office should have set it right, but did not. I don’t think they ever do.

See how such a simple thing takes so much ink to attempt to explain? How am I going to explain it to a judge or magistrate in the few minutes one gets beffore them? Not to mention the ridiculous, fabricated ”complaint” by a person with an established arrest record with the help of an unusually high number of LE and a narrative by one of them which repeatedly tosses in gratuitous hot button words.

Elmer, we have a PO Box and we use this for business mail — medical bills, bank, cr card, and so on.

But the Court would have no way of knowing this. There was no way for them to know, and no way for me to know they would be mailing me a complaint by a twisted, dishonest person.

I'm not following completely but I'd have to think there's some way to resolve it.

Court correspondence in my area is typically based on addresses previously submitted for drivers licenses and voter registration. I don't get the distinction you've made about what you consider to be "business mail" that sounds like ordinary residential mail to me. Do what works for you.

In my state, most Summons to Appear require personal service, not service by mail. Or if something is allowed by mail, it must show a receipt that the paper was actually delivered to the intended recipient. I would cerainly check on that aspect.

My mailing address and my physical address are 2 different towns. Where my house is physically located is in one town and zip code, but my mailing address is tied to a larger city a few miles away. I always use my mailing address on everything. I think the only difference with my situation vs. Petalique's is that I have occassionally received mail that had my physical address on it. It doesn't happen often, but to my knowledge mail addressed to me with my street address. with either town/zip code, will be delivered.

Our first house was on a street that spanned two towns. The people across the street had different schools, garbage collection, etc. Our town did the snow-plowing and road maintenence for the street, and we had our own garbage. The two police and fire departments serviced both sides. But their post office delivered our mail, so our mailing address was their town's zip code. A mess! If someone mailed us a letter or package and put our actual town's zip on it, it would be delayed, since it had to first go to the other town's post office. Our town's government insisted on doing that for official business. I guess their system couldn't handle it any other way. My favorite occurence was when I went to my town's library to get a library card, and my driver's license had the other town as my address. I couldn't believe that no one on my street had ever had gotten a library card!

Let me first say that I don’t quite understand the details of petalique’s US Mail delivery situation. But, the discussion did remind me that I’ve heard of rural area contract mail delivery services. I remember them from years back in an early customer service position with a large bank - dealing with customer complaints about late notices for loan payments etc. & before the days of electronic delivery. Google / AI gave up this on a search

“The Postal Service's agreement with the National Rural Letter Carriers' Association runs through May 20, 2027. The National Rural Letter Carriers' Association membership has ratified a new three-year labor contract with the Postal Service. The agreement will run through May 20, 2027.Jun 16, 2025”

Could the real issue be that no contract carriers are available or had bid for petalique’s rural area & since her physical house address falls outside the mail route delivery capability of the closest USPO, her address has fallen into a ”dead zone” with so few residents? The physical house address has to exist for emergency services - fire & ambulance - as well as for bank loan documents for collateral securing said loan - the house or vehicle.

KW, I believe that's a union that represents those particular employees of the USPS.

I live in a rural area that is not incorporated in any town. My zip code is delivered by a PO in a small town 10 miles to the north in a different county than mine. There is also a PO in a town 6 miles west of me in a different county and another PO 10 miles to the south of me in the same county as mine. My mailing address is in the town where my delivering PO is located.

Years ago, when we were refinancing our mortgage, the mortgage company sent the title search to a company that handled title searches in the county that our PO is located instead of the county that our house is physically located. The lengthy delay in getting the title search completed caused the closing date to go beyond the guaranteed closing date and the mortgage company to drop the quoted rate by 3/8 of a point. Saved me several thousand on interest over the years!

I see that you have an entirely different issue in that the court system incorrectly addressed your mail

Kevin has good information on the command structure of the USPS but the switch over the years to completely presorting mail in central sorting facilities has made the ability of your nearby Postal facilities to do anything about your delivery address problematic. You are expecting your own town PO to redirect misaddress mail to you at your delivery address. You and everyone else in America. Think of all the thousands of pieces of mail they handle every day; Redirected it would have to go back into the mail stream with its corrected address and back to the central sorting system so it gets resorted to its proper route. Possible but why would anyone at that Post office even know you exist? It is a huge ask for them to keep some sort of massive data bank of possible addresses for everyone in the world and to be able to make labels to readdress your particular piece of mail. It is also possible they dont even see that misdirected mail. The system could have long since spit it out as an invalid address.

It is by the way possible that your mail route could get moved from the place that does it now to the PO in your local town. I have known this to happen when they do a mass rerouting. That all has to do with a facility being able to handle the enormous quantities of mail as towns grow bigger and bigger and how many addresses any one carrier can handle.

We have a system that delivers mail to millions of people and businesses. I looked this up by the way because I figured we must have by far the largest postal system on earth and yes we do. They deliver about 50% of all the mail in the world. Our postal rates are one of the lowest. Expecting some other PO to fix your mail is a huge and expensive ask. Do you want to pay for that? It is that simple. Automation in the name of cutting costs has made that just about impossible. Carriers that I know really do their best but.....

patriciae

Elmer, yes, I understand that point about what I copied is about the union representing the contract rural mail carriers. The point I was trying to make was that maybe petalique’s physical address lacks either a contracted rural mail carrier or a regular USPS mail carrier. Thus, my thought that she’s in a ”dead zone”.

Lonejack, it seems like it ending up a positive never happens. Congrats! 😄

For me, I think the city handled the more surburban areas for a long time, as they have more staff. As both the city and surburban areas have grown, they've running into each other now. I'm in the middle between each. It is now sort of weird to be physically located in one town but to have the mailing address of the larger city. However again for me, it has never caused any problems so I never thought much about it before today....

Petalique does get mail delivery but the address used by the USPS is her mailing address not her residential address. So mail does come to her residence but not under the name of the town where she lives. It comes under the name of a nearby town where the facility where her mail is delivered from is. I dont see why people see this as confusing. For her it created a serious issue in that the local court system used her residential address instead of her mailing address. This is on them.

patriciae

patriciae - thanks for the simple details - I get it now. I was lost in the all the details shared by so many & also took the posted question at face value. I agree that the fault lies with the court system delivery. ”Someone” in the administration area of their court system is responsible for dealing with undeliverable legal notices.

It sounds like Petalique has the perfect scenario to help push for change. Take the story to a local news station who covers your ”town, zip code”. Also send a copy of your problem to your local representatives. Now you have a actions started to back up your explanation to the courts who did not use your fake mailing address.

This really sounds like a bad choice by a postal facility that has not been corrected yet. I would be escalating this as it sounds abnormal. Good luck.

People bellyache about the cost of things. So lets just make mail more expensive.

FYI the local PO does not make this decision. They are told by higher ups what mail they deliver and what those addresses are. One interesting point that I was surprised to learn is that in spite of the PS requiring you to provide a box for mail delivery in cases where they dont you do not then actually own your box and cant use it as you please and it has to meet their standards for delivery. Strange but true.

as for fake does your county or town allow you to make up your own number for your home? Mine doesn't.

Yes, we have a small adjoining village of approx 1,600 nearby. They have a city council, a mayor, small police force, school board and school that runs through pre-K to 8th grade. Volunteer fire department with paramedics.

No mail is delivered to any residence - all must be picked up at a PO box at their Post office.

Perhaps some entities (state DPS/DPT/drivers' licenses? court system?) require the physical, actual residential location as the official address vs. a mailing address i.e. PO Box. Thus leading to petalique's problem due to the quirk in how her mail is handled/processed.

Then why did my DH get a notice from the courts for jury duty in spite of our address being that town across the river and west of us? My postal delivery address is from that town. A place where I do not live but the postal address if from. Even more amazing is that the mail is not actually processed in that town. It is processed at the facility at a different town.

OH GOD!!!!! It is however delivered under the auspices of that town across the river and to the west of us because while our address is from a town we do not live in, they borrow processing space from another town that has extra space because they ran out of space. Addresses are like that. They are not fake addresses because all addresses are made up. Ouch to the brain

A mailing address is not necessarily a PO box. In most cases it it just what I and petalique have.

patriciae

Where is Emily Litella when she's needed? I'm not ready to go along with what's portrayed as an unresolvable problem.

Oh Gilda - how you are missed! Still…😭

Yes, major issues like the Eagle Rights Amendment and Violins on TV have faded from public attention. I didn't cite her quite in that sense but rather than the apparent absence of useful information for this topic seems to prevent resolutions.

It is because the resolution is not an easy one Elmer. The USPS is not going to just change her address because they would have to change the address of potentially hundreds of other people. Any individual mail route serves as many as 700 households. That number depends on the size of the area served-the practicality of how much distance is between boxes and how long it takes to get to them all. The tearing apart and realigning of routes is complicated and expensive. a change to another town and zip would involve a major change to the data bank that controls all that electronic sorting equipment in that far away central sorting facility because it sorts to the route. Change the route and you must change the sorting. Because of the massive growth around towns it would make good sense to just bite the bullet and do some serious realigning but that costs. Even better would be getting rid of the City and Rural carrier divide.

patriciae

Postal service employees. People who deliver mail.

patriciae

patriciae, there seems to be an element here of trying to tell others how to do their jobs.

If you (or others) have such problems, have you had a face to face conversation with whichever PO managers are involved, presented the problem, and asked them how to resolve or deal with it? I think this is a higher level issue than presumptions about how the minutia work can help.

Edit to add:

Here's another idea - have you discussed the problem with the mail carrier who comes to your mailbox? They may be able to help. I've had several occasions over the years when the customer facing USPS employees, the mail carriers, have been extremely helpfu. Because of their understanding and insights about operations and the sometime issues that arise.

I am catching up on this.

I’m not expecting anybody to cater to me. But I ought to be able to get mail and there’s no way I can foresee that somebody whether it’s a court that I’ve never had any business with or a friend from Oshkosh is going to send me a note for notice of a complaint for which I have to show up in court. I don’t think that’s asking too much. The problem is that the people sending me materials such as the court they ought to have an idea of what the rules are. I don’t know yet where they get there addresses for people. Again my drivers license has the physical address where I’m sitting right now, my residence. But no mail sent to that address is ever ever ever going to reach me and if it’s a notice from the court, they are going to be unhappy, and I will get a warrant because to the court I look like I am a scofflaw.

I suppose I could take out giant billboards along the highway and advertise what my correct address is maybe have some announcements on television stations across the country.

A few days ago, we did an experiment just for the heck of it because we have extra postage stamps. We want to try to get rid of before we die. So I had DH three letter letters to our residence from various places across the country. I had to fly to Denver, to Alaska and to Boston to get this done. That was seven days ago we haven’t gotten a one of them. I asked him to put as a return address the post office where we choose to have our medical bills, bank information, and that sort of thing go to. Elmer, that’s what I chose to label “business” versus birthday cards. I could’ve just as well as called it. “bank medical credit card deeds legal anything that isn’t a birthday card or Christmas card or invitation” mail, but that would be a lot of syllables.

So with the envelopes that DH sent to our residential address our physical location in the town where we pay taxes and where I’m sitting right this minute those did not get to us, nor did they get returned to the sender, which would’ve been our post office box that we choose purposefully because we cannot count on really important stuff getting to us necessarily if somebody doesn’t know the unstated rules and mails it to our residence.
We have no beef with the postal people. They’re nice. It’s not a personal thing. I’ve never met a postal worker or mailman worth biting. They all seemed pretty good to me.

OLY — so I guess it wasn’t a “summons.” it was a document sent by a district court. And in that document, there was a thing called“The Complaint“ and then a narrative by a police officer, saying how I did something that I did not do and agreeing with the complainant. This was about five years ago, but I never received that complaint from the court with a date that indicated apparently, somehow that I should make an appearance. But I couldn’t comply because I never ever ever got that document because it was addressed to my physical residential address. Where I sleep. I only learned about it when I went to renew my drivers license and could not do so because there was just WARRANT. And the warrant came about, years ago without my knowing it because I did not show up at the court because I did not get the information that was sent to my residential address. Any email address to my residential address will never get to me. You just won’t and that is the address that is on my library card and is on my drivers license and who knows how many other pieces of paper because it is the address that the town I live in has for me. We used to get our tax bill mailed here and didn’t get it and other documents and then we had to get it through the people at the city clerk’s office and the tax office that they can’t use that address. They have to address it to the next municipality and their ZIP Code. Again to identical cities. It as if I cloned them for all intents and purposes they are clones of one another.

JoanM — I don’t want to escalate this or try to change some thing and get all my neighbors together and blah blah because I think I’m the only one here who cares. One neighbor who is harassing me and who’s complaint created this mess to begin with seems to be a narcotics dealer with an arrest history. When the police come to raid him, they don’t seem to have a problem finding him. Because he is such a sociopathic individual and has been harassing me and making up nonsense, I don’t feel particularly inclined to go ask him about his feelings toward the mail delivery.

HU-279332973. “ People bellyache about the cost of things. So lets just make mail more expensive.”

Nobody is trying to make the postal system more expensive. I pay taxes, federal and state, I want what most people get their mail delivered correctly. Most people get this and I should be able to as well without a lot of confusion or for people having to be on the “in” about certain local knowledge.

“ FYI the local PO does not make this decision. They are told by higher ups what mail they deliver and what those addresses are. ”

I only want mail addressed to me to be delivered to me.

“as for fake does your county or town allow you to make up your own number for your home? Mine doesn't.”

I did not say anything about “Fake” nor do I want to create my own house number.

My Goodness, HU-279…… , You seem confused and maybe annoyed ;)

The situation is beyond my control. Not every entity sending me mail understands that the postal delivery for residents on our little road has its quirks. What would appear to be a logical USPS mailing address, my residence, is NOT a VALID address for the USPS, but only some entities know that, largely because we must let them know. I cannot know who might want to mail me. I have no way of knowing that they are not in the know about the quirky USPS address.

It would sort of be akin to people driving down the main street of their town, expecting nothing eventful to happen if nobody was around, and the roads were clear of traffic but for one vehicle. If that one vehicle happens to touch a particular manhole their car will explode. It’s local knowledge. It’s not published anywhere and there’s no signage to direct somebody who didn’t already know that they were going to be going down Main Street after 2 AM on a Sunday morning. Some people know some people don’t. I don’t think anybody would call that reasonable.

Continuing with my responses…

▪️ nobody made us get a PO Box in town. My husband and I CHOSE to pay money to get one because we live in an area that is rural and sometimes mailboxes get vandalized. We wanted to be sure that any mail from banks we deal with, businesses we have a relationship with, medical bills (obviously an existing relationship) and other mail we deemed very important. We do not want to lose this mail. Is that clear? In other words, we elected to get PO box in town where we could have mail delivered that was sensitive. In other words, I wouldn’t want somebody vandalizing our mailbox to get our BANK statements or my medical information. So we go into the city a couple of times a week to pick up that mail. Nobody forces us to get this PO BOX. Anybody can get a post office box anywhere I think.

▪️ Elmer, I am not trying to ”resolve” this immediately. i’m not sure how I would do that. Right now I need to get my drivers license and I need to get the warrant resolved and I also have to deal with the bogus complaint from somebody on our road for a nothing offense. He’s the one with a long rap sheet, but he seems to have friends in the police department who are willing to be helpful to him.

So right now, I need to quickly and concisely explain this to the local court so that there is no longer a warrant out so that I can get my drivers license. The warrant only came about because the court addressed the complaint to me at my residence. I can get mail delivered to my residence, but it has to be addressed to the town next-door with their ZIP Code, and apparently the court did not know this. Again, it’s sort of local knowledge. The address on my drivers license is for my residence so if somebody mailed me something important at that address on my drivers license, I would not get that mail. However, if somebody wanted to come to the door to tell me that my husband was mushed in a car accident they would be able to find me by going to that address since it’s the residence. So that has a benefit. As I explained before the registry of motor vehicles has my mailing address. So they know if they want to mail me something from the register of motor vehicles. They have to address it to my name and my address for the street, and to the town next-door and to that ZIP Code next-door. Not complicated on the face of it.

Continuing with my responses…

▪️ nobody made us get a PO Box in town. My husband and I CHOSE to pay money to get one because we live in an area that is rural and sometimes mailboxes get vandalized. We wanted to be sure that any mail from banks we deal with, businesses we have a relationship with, medical bills (obviously an existing relationship) and other mail we deemed very important. We do not want to lose this mail. Is that clear? In other words, we elected to get PO box in town where we could have mail delivered that was sensitive. In other words, I wouldn’t want somebody vandalizing our mailbox to get our BANK statements or my medical information. So we go into the city a couple of times a week to pick up that mail. Nobody forces us to get this PO BOX. Anybody can get a post office box anywhere I think.

▪️ Elmer, I am not trying to ”resolve” this immediately. I’m not sure how I would do that. Right now I need to get my driver’s license and I need to get the warrant resolved and I also have to deal with the bogus complaint from somebody on our road for a nothing offense. He’s the one with a long rap sheet, but he seems to have friends in the police department who are willing to be helpful to him. (He has been arrested/raided for narcotics dealing. He is paranoid, touchy about someone walking past his operation/house.

IMMEDIATE MISSION:

So right now, I need to quickly and concisely explain this to the local court so that there is no longer a warrant out so that I can get my driver's license. The warrant only came about because the court addressed the complaint to me at my residence.

🔺I can get mail delivered to my residence, but it has to be addressed to the town next-door with their ZIP Code, and apparently the court did not know this.

Again, it’s sort of local knowledge. The address on my driver's license is for my residence so if somebody mailed me something important at that address on my driver's license, I would not get that mail.

However, if somebody wanted to come to the door to tell me that my husband was mushed in a car accident they would be able to find me by going to that address since it’s the residence. So that has a benefit.

As I explained before, the registry of motor vehicles has my mailing address. So they know if they want to mail me something from the Registery of Motor Vehicles, they have to address it to my name and my address for the street, and to the town next-door and to that ZIP Code next-door. Not complicated on the face of it.

Since I have had not Dealings with the court, they do not know that they cannot mail me official business (The Complaint) to my residential address (on my driver’s license and on the Voter Registration Roll.)

I could not renew my driver’s license a few weeks ago. Blocked because there was a Warrant.

The Warrant came about because I did not appear for a court date. I had no way of knowing about the court date because I never got “The Complaint” from the court.

DH went to get a copy of The Complaint that the court says they sent. He noticed when he got back home, that the address the Court mailed the Complaint to (with the date I was expected to appear) was mailed to my Residential Address that is NOT a Valid address for US mail. (*** How would the Court have known this? This is the point. Because I did not get their notice with the complaint and court date, I had no idea I was supposed to appear in Court.

Because I did not appear, the court issued a Warrant. (I had no idea!)

Because of the Warrant, I was Blocked from getting my driver’s license renewed. I have no driver’s license.

The above is just Part 1 of my problem.

This above narrative should be clear to anyone competent in English and who has an attention span which most graduates of US Eighth Grade would be expected to have.

I hope you end up dealing with bureaucrats who can understand this.