Syracuse (WSYR-TV) - Maybe it's a flyer from a home improvement or snow-plow contractor looking for your business. Maybe it's from the Boy Scouts about their next bottle drive. It’s stuff that shows up in your mailbox that doesn't belong.
In this Your Stories Q&A, one viewer went to check the mailbox for a couple old issues of a magazine his mother had left for him. But they weren't there. Why? They were taken by a postal worker, because they didn't belong.
Postal spokesperson Maureen Marion tells us by federal regulation, the only thing that belongs in your mailbox at any time is United States Mail.
And yes, mail carriers are authorized to remove and discard anything that isn't mail.
She says the government considers your mailbox as though it were a sealed envelope: What's inside is covered by the same level of postal security.
Marion says in the case of magazines with an address on them, the carrier may try to re-deliver those to the correct address, but those other flyers for contractors, bottle and can drives, anything that might put in the mailbox, whatever it is, if it isn't U.S. Mail, by law, it shouldn't be there, and it can be seized and discarded by the carrier.
She says all of this is for our protection. Your carrier is often a first line of defense against threatening or harmful material left in someone's mailbox.
How about that newspaper delivered to your mailbox, usually out in the rural areas? That shouldn't happen, unless it's a Sunday. On Sunday, we’re told, that's legal, because there is no expectation of mail delivery on Sunday.
Given the law, you may ask why you’re still finding some of this non-mail making its way into your mailbox.
The postal service says the carrier may not have time, or space, to seize all of it on a given day, but if the source of the material, whether it be an address or phone number, is on the flyer in question, postal officials will call the offending party, and put them on notice.
If you've got a question, call 446-9900, or e-mail yourstories@9wsyr.com.
