MailmanDave
17 Years Experience
Long Island, NY
Male, 43
I am a City Letter Carrier for the US Postal Service in NY. I've been a city letter carrier for over 17 years and it is the best job I've ever had. I mostly work 5 days per week (sometimes includes a Saturday) and often have the opportunity for overtime, which is usually voluntary. The route I deliver has about 350 homes and I walk to each of their doors to deliver the mail. Please keep in mind that I don't have authority to speak for the USPS, so all opinions are solely mine, not my employer.
I don't know why the mail would have been removed from your mailbox unless the box was maybe overflowing. In that case we may suspend further delivery or empty the mailbox and return any accumulated mail to the senders or discard the mail depending on the class it was sent. Maybe the letter carrier thinks you have moved. It seems the mail has been removed a bit prematurely, but I don't know of a way to get the mail back.
I don't know the answer to this. My guess is as long as it isn't being held in customs for further inspection, then it should clear in a couple of days. When I see items from overseas that is postmarked it seems that it took 7-10 days total from when it was mailed. I'm just going on observation here and don't have any inside knowledge on what the goal is to clear international packages for delivery.
I don't believe they can ask you what is actually in the large letter, but I know if it's over a certain weight or size, they can ask something to the effect of "is the item you are mailing liquid, fragile, perishable, or potentially hazardous?" and you self-certify the answer with a yes or no. Certain batteries have to go by surface only and can't fly on airplanes. So I would take exception of they actually ask you what is being mailed if it's first class or Priority Mail. If you are mailing something via Medial Mail they can verify or even open a package to inspect that it is media (books, CDs, cassettes, video, DVD). I hope this answers your question.
I'm not sure what it means, but I'd gather that the renter of the PO Box either stopped paying the fee on the PO Box and it was closed or that they closed it on purpose. They also probably didn't put in a forwarding address which is why the label said "return to sender". It means the PO Box number exists but is not currently in use.
Stand-Up Comedian
Navy Officer (Former)
Veterinarian
From Long Island to Brooklyn, NY is usually 2 days as long as it is mailed by the final pickup time on one day (for example usually 5 or 6 PM). The mail delivery system is pretty reliable in meeting that timeframe unless the mail is missorted or misdelivered.
Maybe for a day or so to see if anybody in the PO knows where that address is. Being that I deliver mail to the same neighborhood each day I know if a piece of mail has a valid address on it or not. It's possible if there is a replacement letter carrier delivering mail on a certain day and they can't find an address they will bring back the mail and then possibly the regular letter carrier on the route or somebody else would know where the address is. More often than not when mail has an address that can't be found (or the address doesn't even exist), we will endorse the mail as "NSN" which means "No Such Number" and it will be returned to the sender. The USPS has a national database of all valid addresses so we usually know at the PO if an address exists or not.
I don't know the policy on this as I've never thought to put someone's mail on hold without their authorization. I suppose this could come about if their mailbox was full and the carrier couldn't deliver any more mail to that address. In that case maybe a letter carrier would hold any future mail at the PO for a certain amount of time and then possibly return that mail to the sender with the endorsements "mailbox full". A letter carrier can also hold the mail at the PO if your mailbox is inaccessible due to snow. They will usually deliver all of the accumulated mail within a couple of days of the mailbox becoming accessible. We had that situation occur at our PO this past winter when snow prevented some of the driving (mounted) route carriers from being able to drive up to a mailbox without getting out of their LLV.
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