I have seen other threads on this subject, but dealing more with scams and fraudulent activity conducted by guests, e.g. regisering businesses, bank accounts, social security etc. at the host's home. Of course, those are situations we all want to avoid (I have been the victim of a large identity fraud involving the postal service), but I want to talk about guests receiving mail in general.
Do you allow it? If not, how do you stop guests from doing it?
I have in my house rules (which I ask all guests to confirm they have read) that guest must NOT give out my address as a mailing address (but that long-term guests can ask permission first). I do understand that if someone is staying with me for months, they may need to receive some mail within reason, but I cannot allow short term guests ( I host around 150 people a year) to give out my home address.
Many companies will spam you forever regardless of how many times you return to sender. Only today, I got a letter addressed to a girl who stayed for two days in December 2016 and never asked permission to give out the address. When I emailed her asking her to get it removed from that mailing list, she first claimed that I had messaged the wrong person and then, when I confirmed her full name, that it still had nothing to do with her. How else did her full name + my full address get on the letter then?
I have had numerous guests receive mail at my house, often concert or football tickets, but also packages of varying descriptions. If they ask permission at all, they usually ask after placing the order, so they are not really asking, just letting me know so that I can be their concierge service! I have also had demands for payment sent by FedEx which the guest lied about and I had to sort out myself.
A current guest, who is staying a month, casually told me the first day that he would be getting his groceries delivered to the house. When I reminded him that he wasn't supposed to give out my address, he seemed shocked and asked what he was supposed to do about his Amazon orders. I reluctantly agreed he could order things from Amazon, but nowhere else (as Amazon don't tend to send spam mail). Since then, he's had numerous packages arrive from different companies. I can only imagine how many years I'll be receiving mail for him after he leaves. My other guest, who is staying six months, had six enormous boxes delivered after she arrived (I'm talking the size of suitcases). She did ask permission and said she would be sending them to China within one or two weeks. Two months later, I had to ask her to please have the boxes shipped back.
How can I stop this? I tell them no, but they do it anyway. I am thinking of adding to my rules: "Any unauthorised mail received will immediately be returned to sender or destroyed." Is that too harsh? And what if it still happens? It would be difficult to follow through on this without causing a big drama!