One of the things about moving house fairly often (and in rented accommodation at that) is receiving post addressed to previous residents. I normally just stick it back in the post box with “return to sender” on it and eventually the post for the previous residents dries up. I’ve now lived in my current place for almost three years, so I was surprised when this week I got three pieces of post all addressed to a name I hadn’t seen before.
I do have new neighbours upstairs from me and possibly new neighbours across the corridor (this is London, of course I don’t know my neighbours). Two of the pieces of post were about over 50’s life insurance (although they were from the same company), and I’m sure that none of my (new) neighbours meet that criteria.
There have been a few times recently when takeaway delivery drivers have tried to give me food that’s meant for a neighbour, even though the address they have clearly isn’t mine (it’s the same flat number, but the next block over, which is even a different postcode). [It’s not every delivery, just some takeaways, so whatever takeaway app this is really needs to sort out their database/mapping. It’s tempting just to accept the food, but I haven’t done. Am I allowed to knowingly accept a wrong food delivery?] But these letters are definitely addressed to my flat and are being delivered by the normal postperson. They’re just not addressed to a person who currently lives here.
Which brings me to three possibilities:
- There was a previous, previous(, previous?) resident by this name who has recently turned 50, or whatever age you have to be get letters about over 50 life insurance, and this has triggered companies sending him post again.
- One of my (new) neighbours has put the wrong address on something they’ve signed up to and some of their items are going to me by mistake.
- There’s a 50 year old man sharing my flat with me who I never knew about before.