My parents used to forward their mail to their other house all the time. I don't remember there being an issue.

We do not do it. Our mail carrier up north makes so many mistakes. Unfortunately same here in Florida.

We pay someone to collect the mail up north. She comes 3 times a week and calls if anything needs to be addressed. DH has been good about putting important things on line, but not everything can be.

Our home watch here in Florida checks out box once a week.

We had a random issue here Florida. Birthday cards were sent back to the senders. A new carrier decided we didn't live here!

Recently in my box here in Florida I received a forward mail from something who lives around the corner.

We also have informed delivery but that is only good if mistakes aren’t made. We don’t trust it.

Our mail is more complicated than most ad we own multiple properties. We can’t afford to have important papers lost or delivered to thecwtong place.

I used it before the Post Office had its "issues". Even then though, I was worried about it so I would do it a few days ahead of time, to see if I continued to get mail and also sent some test pieces as well. No guarantees, but if there were errors I felt like it gave me some time try again.

Salonva, I tried that too up north. My carrier decides if and when to comply to the mail stop!

One time she didn’t do it at all when we're were gone for over a week.

We now have Next and can see what is going on at the front door.

I complained to our post master. They can’t do anything as she can’t be fired.

Yeah, that's what I was afraid of. Ugghhh....

Cutting back on the advertising mail also helps. We never use the dentist and pizza coupons anyway.

Our cabin is 45 minutes from our real house. The first couple of years of ownership we were bombarded with mail at that location. 99.99% junk. For the price of $ 4.00 we were able to stop the majority (98%) of it. That 4 dollars is for 10 years. It does take a few months before we saw that the registry was working.

We do try to have any important mail mailed to our primary location.

https://www.dmachoice.org/

. We are in Florida at our condo for a few months, and have forwarded mail every year, when we come down here, with some lost mail each time. Since he passed away in November, we had our late son’s mail being forwarded from his residence on Long Island, to our house up north while we were there, As the post office will not forward mail that is already being forwarded, we had been having our DIL pick up our mail, and send the important stuff of his, to us down here in Florida, for the last month. As his forwarded mail has mostly stopped, we decided to start forwarding our mail, starting this week. Fingers crossed that no catastrophes arise. It’s always a crapshoot when it comes to the USPS.

3katz, remind me where you ended up … by DM if you prefer not to have your town all over the internet. I have a business aquaintance who lives in your area, I think. She may know someone who is willing (for a fee) to go by your house a couple of times a week to check your mail.

When DH and I went to Europe for 6 weeks, several years ago, I put all bills of any sort on automatic draft. I also bought pre-paid priority mail envelopes*. My neighbor went through my mail, pitched the ads, laid the bills aside, and sent anything that looked like it might need attention to DD weekly in the pre-paid envelopes.

*Buying the pre-paid envelopes was a type of HUCB (hang up, call back). The first person I talked to at the post office said it couldn’t be done. I left and went back a couple of days later. I got a more experienced postal worker do knew how to do it.

bbstx - i just sent you a message. I also just talked to friends in FL to see what they do and they use USPS forwarding. Their take on it is that it's okay now but was sketchy during Covid. The only real mail I think I might get would be from the state or federal government. I wonder if they stop delivering junk mail or if they pile that up in your mailbox. We still get real mail (bank statements) for people who lived here over two years ago - not the most recent residents though we get theirs too. I've started putting it back in the box with "no longer at this address" on the envelope.

“. We still get real mail (bank statements) for people who lived here over two years ago”

We still receive bank mail for the deceased previous owner of our cabin. Seven years later.

For 6 years, we wrote on the envelopes; “ Return to sender, DECEASED“. It did not stop the mail.

We have located a child of the previous owner and now forward the bank mail to her.

She recently thanked us because the last mail had a check in it. She may have finally realized that she needs to close out her father’s bank account.

3katz, check messages

I've done this. We have an undeveloped property with a mailbox (in a bank of mailboxes for the neighborhood) in addition to our primary residence. Sometimes important things go to the property and so we often do a temporary forward to our primary residence. It's worked fairly well.

We used mail forwarding for years while shuttling back and forth between PA and CA. For the most part, it worked fine. I did and still do use informed delivery. It does help to keep track of what is being sent where. The only real problems we had were with magazines and periodicals. Sometimes they get forwarded and sometimes they don't. In 7 years, we never had anything of importance get lost.

I’ve done it many times with our summer, Cottage. I find that the biggest issue is that it takes weeks to kick in.

We've done it for a few years now. We don't receive very much mail and they only forward first class mail. Sometimes, it takes a couple of days longer than usual.

Well now you have me thinking about giving it a try. There will be very little, if any, important mail to get lost and I should know what it is from the informed delivery.

I used mail hold and mail forwarding for about 4 years.

There were errors, usually caused by the relief carrier. My postal carrier worked 5 days a week, Sundays off, then a different day off each week, week 1 was Monday off, week 2 was Tuesday off, etc

During the 4 years, I was home enough to find delivered mail that should have been held or forwarded. I used both hold (3weeks max) and forwarding. After talking to the regular carrier, the relief carrier was occasionally delivering my mail instead of holding or forwarding.

I do not know of any problems caused by my mail not being held or forwarded. I had a large locking mail box.

I moved about 4 years ago and had my mail forwarded to my new address. There may be a process where the post office notifies senders of my new address. I do knot know of any problems caused when I moved.

At my current address, I occasionally receive mail addressed to neighbors and based on the dates of periodicals, some of my mail is misdelivered.

My previous carrier and my current carrier are very friendly, they seem to be efficient. People are more apt to complain then praise. Mail hold and forwarding helped me. A neighbor used to pickup and forward my mail, but she moved.

You'd think the hold/forwarding would take place earlier in the process than with the carrier. That makes no sense.

I came back to add that I always left notes in my mailbox for the carriers. It does take a few days to kick in.

If I was gone starting on the 10th, I'd leave a note on the 10th saying "don't leave mail, mail is forwarded". The carrier would take the mail back and run it through the machine again to pick up the yellow forwarded address sticker. And when we'd leave, same note. Worked well for us. I also spoke to the carriers so they knew what what going on.

I remember the yellow sticker. I received mail (junk mail) for years with my home address and the yellow sticker at my temp residence.

California is opening a new postal processing center in Northern CA.

You'd think the hold/forwarding would take place earlier in the process than with the carrier. That makes no sense.

That is not the way my sister does it, and not the norm. When she is at her second home (every other month), the mail at her main house is held at the PO. You can do this online, over the phone or in person. You can only place a 30 day hold, but they do not return anything for another 7-10 days (says online, don't recall which it is). She also has Informed Delivery.

She always chooses the HOLD/she will pick up at PO, but once her mail carrier had it on the truck for delivery when she arrived to pick up. After her repeated instructions, they have not done that again.

We have done that. When we moved to the current home, we had the mails forwarded from the previous home in a different town. We don’t forward mails from the weekend place in a different state to primary home.

So, a question. Is it a requirement to have a mailbox? We have a PO Box for our regular mail. We very rarely get anything in the house box except junk (looking at you, Spectrum.) When we go traveling, I'll forward it to the PO box, but since they only forward first class, the junk will pile up. What happens if we remove the mailbox from the post?

I can ask at the post office, but I suspect the folks here are better informed.

We don’t have a mailbox or PO box at our lake place. I’ve wondered where that junk mail goes - presumably into the Post Office trash or hopefully the recycling.