Re: How to deal with your Neighbors Outdoor Lights

Davoud wrote:
whowell wrote:

It advised me that putting ANYTHING into a mail box was considered interfering with the lawful delivery of the mail.....which was a federal offence.

Just another example of governmental interference in private matters!

Sorry, but approved mailboxes were never a private matter in the United
States or in the colonies that existed before 1776.

Land of the free??? And yet another thing that you can't do in it!

Even for main mailboxes owned by UK Royal Mail this would not be true in the UK. A correctly addressed letter posted with none or inadequate postage would be probably be delivered but charged postage due to the recipient. And you can put pretty much anything you like delivered by hand to anyones private mailbox (UK letter boxes are in house doors).

Local parish events (and even jury service), newspapers, telephone directories and loads of other common circulars all rely on hand delivery of mail by routes that totally bypass the Post Office.

This is true in virtually every country in the developed world, and in
many less developed countries as well.

Not true in the UK. Anyone can post anything they like into a private letter box. Obviously criminal material would be subject to prosecution.

But there is no offence in distributing the parish magazine or a flyer advertising local fresh eggs, window cleaning or grasscutting by hand. It happens all the time.

You do, however, have the right to petition your government to change
the law. Do be careful what you wish for, however. Do you want the
general public to have lawful access to your mailbox? I think you would
soon be crying for some "government interference."

In the UK it is a criminal offence to interfere with post in the Royal Mail. But is not an offence to post something unsolicited in a private letter box (and AFAIK never has been). There have been pamphleteers in the UK ever since the invention of the printing press...

In answer to the OP's original question. I think an unsolicited mailshot like he proposed would only serve to put peoples backs up (and in the light of the fact that it appears to be illegal in the USA) perhaps even get him into trouble if one or more of them are litigious.

Far better to have a quiet word with the nearest ones and see if they might be more considerate about switching them off on timers or agree to FCO and/or shielding their lights in his direction.

Personal contact is far more likely to work.

Regards,
Martin Brown
.

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