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Addresses
Aug 28, 2019 17:33:09 GMT
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Post by hoyabella on Aug 28, 2019 17:33:09 GMT
I was browsing the Inco list and saw that many addresses, in various countries, comprise an apartment number (apt). This is not common in Italy, I don't know anyone with such an address. So I wonder, does it mean that the mail is delivered to the apartment, inside the building and not at the main door/gate?
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Post by PhotoJim on Aug 28, 2019 20:21:46 GMT
Here in Canada, apartment buildings usually have individual mailboxes inside the main door for the tenants. The letter carrier/postman will have a key to open up the main door to these mailboxes, and deliver the individual mail there. Tenants then go to this area to claim their mail.
Packages are usually delivered right to the tenant's door, if the tenant is home.
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Post by allanorn on Aug 31, 2019 17:09:54 GMT
Most of the time apartment buildings have one centralized place with a bunch of mailboxes for tenants, so anything like letters or small packets will be there. Any outgoing letter mail can usually be dropped off there as well.
Packages are different because it'll depend on the apartment complex and how accessible the path to someone's apartment door is. Where I live, they'll either be under the stoop where the mailboxes are, or they'll put packages next to the apartment doors. Larger and/or newer apartment buildings may have a doorman or residential staff to receive packages (if it's a luxury place), or there will be a couple of unaddressed large mailboxes where the postman stores the package there and drops the key in your mailbox.
I've been to two small towns where there are no mailboxes; instead everyone has a free box at the post office and the postal workers hand packages over at the counter.
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Post by MKB on Aug 31, 2019 19:26:33 GMT
Speaking of small towns, when I was 14 my family moved to a mountain community in Arizona that was spread out. Our house was being built, and there was no mail box at first. We had to go into town to the post office, about 5 miles away, and pick up mail at the counter. Letters were addressed to General Delivery instead of a street address. To receive delivered mail at our house, I had to install a post in the ground and an approved mailbox on top of it. Because of the mail carrier's route, it had to be located on the next road over from ours. The address had Rural Route and Box numbers (RR 1, Box 2135) instead of a standard property address.
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Post by rosesnbrambles on Sept 1, 2019 12:44:36 GMT
My mailbox is half a mile away from my house and is a small compartment in a cluster mailbox unit. When I first moved here, we had a standard post office approved mailbox but there were a few instances of theft so the postal service installed the cluster unit and assigned a space to each house on this road as well as some other homes nearby. They also installed a unit with 2 parcel lockers. Items that don't fit in the regular compartment are placed in one of the parcel lockers and the key to the locker is left in the mail compartment. Packages that are too big for the parcel locker (and anything that is signature required) are delivered to my door. Of course packages that aren't being handled by the USPS are delivered to my door or left in a pre-arranged location.
When I was a kid, I had a Rural Route address for the mailbox at the end of my driveway. I remember when this area switched from those RR addresses to property addresses which met 9-1-1 guidelines. Prior to that, people didn't really have house numbers and emergency responders would receive directions like "I'm over at Clyde Wilson's farm" or "We're two houses down from the Quick Stop. There's a red truck and a black car in the driveway."
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Post by christyotwisty on Sept 30, 2019 3:40:24 GMT
I visited the Royal Mail website, to learn how to properly address an envelope to be sent to a Bailiwick, and I learned I have failed for most of my letter-writing life to conform to Royal Mail's guidelines. I have not put in all capitals the city name I tend not to write my address on the top back of the envelope. As I cut and affix labels mostly, I could start. I am a bad girl and include commas on the labels (e.g. Cawston, Rugby /nl CV22 7XY) I do occasionally use the Gill Sans font for addressing to the UK, imagining it gives the recipient a minor thrill. The Gill Sans font does not thrill the recipient. personal.help.royalmail.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/81I can tell you I do not ever put a domestic city's name in ALL CAPITALS, either in the US or Canada. The mail arrives nonetheless. Sometimes I've had mail returned to me from the USPS for putting my address on the back of the envelope, rather than the front where the postage and addressee are.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 30, 2019 13:40:21 GMT
Funnily enough I read that too just a few weeks ago! I was taught in school to use commas etc and tend to still do it now and my letters always get to their destination no problem. TBH I think as long as you write the address neatly enough it's gonna get there I was told that the postcode is the most important bit (mine being NE66 1LY) as ~ in my case ~ the NE66 is Alnwick Sorting Office and the 1LY is my courtyard. Even writing my address as 9, NE66 1LY should get it to me as it gives the area *NE = north east)*, the relevant sorting depot, the area of Anwick and my house number
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Post by Mia on Sept 30, 2019 19:17:05 GMT
NE postcode is probably for Newcastle.
On my UK post, I put my return address on the back as house number and postcode. I sometimes receive post from aboard with their return address in short form too.
I put my return address top left corner of envelope most of the time. Once I put it on the back, the letter was returned to me and it said that there was no postage (on the back).
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Post by penguy on Oct 1, 2019 4:51:45 GMT
When I read the post by christotwisty I decided to check out the Royal mail recommendations then checked the US postal service to see what their recommendation for addressing envelopes was. It looks like they might not be too appreciative of my handwritten addresses. If you want to see what the US postal service wants check out: pe.usps.com/BusinessMail101?ViewName=AdditionalResourcesAddressing . I am not aware of any letters being delayed because of creative script, perhaps postal service personnel enjoy seeing something a bit more creative! Also I didn't realize that the UK wants the address aligned with the left side of the envelope.
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Post by penguy on Oct 1, 2019 4:54:39 GMT
When I read the post by christotwisty I decided to check out the Royal mail recommendations then checked the US postal service to see what their recommendation for addressing envelopes was. It looks like they might not be too appreciative of my handwritten addresses. If you want to see what the US postal service wants check out: pe.usps.com/text/qsg300/Q602.htm?ViewName=AdditionalResourcesAddressing . I am not aware of any letters being delayed because of creative script, perhaps postal service personnel enjoy seeing something a bit more creative! Also I didn't realize that the UK wants the address aligned with the left side of the envelope.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 1, 2019 8:19:48 GMT
NE postcode is probably for Newcastle. Hahahaha and there's me who lived there until I was 36 not knowing that I just assumed it meant North-east *whoops* Neil is always telling me off for assumption When I come to think of it I do remember a couple of my postie friends (from when I worked in a post office) telling me that the mail left Alnwick Sorting Office at 7pm and went down to the huge sorting office in Team Valley....which is kinda close to Newcaste (opposite side of the river Tyne in Gateshead)
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Addresses
Oct 1, 2019 11:56:40 GMT
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Post by hoyabella on Oct 1, 2019 11:56:40 GMT
[quote author=" penguy" source="/post/15413/thread" It looks like they might not be too appreciative of my handwritten addresses. Also I didn't realize that the UK wants the address aligned with the left side of the envelope.[/quote] Once I wrote the address in a flourish font and my husband advised me against it because such an address cannot be automatically read by sorting machines and the delivery is delayed :-( The Italian post requires (among many other things) that the address is aligned to the right side, below the stamp. I don't remember any guidelines for the sender's address. Traditionally it is written on the back.
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Addresses
Oct 1, 2019 12:08:41 GMT
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Post by hoyabella on Oct 1, 2019 12:08:41 GMT
I was told that the postcode is the most important bit (mine being NE66 1LY) as ~ in my case ~ the NE66 is Alnwick Sorting Office and the 1LY is my courtyard. :-O Wow, I had no idea British post codes were so informative! Italian post codes are a 5-digit numbers, increasing from north to south, wherein the first two digits (in some cases the first three) indicate the province. Therefore the indication of the province, a two-letter code, is redundant but it is still compulsory. Here a post code can refer to a part of a city or big town, to a whole town or to two or more villages.
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Post by PhotoJim on Oct 1, 2019 20:07:33 GMT
Canadian postal codes are pretty precise, too. Mine, S4R 4K7, narrows down the address to about a dozen homes. S is for Saskatchewan; 4 (and 5) means the mail is sorted by the Regina postal distribution centre. (Rural addresses have a 0 here, and the next letter indicates the distribution centre - S0G for the Regina area.) R is a specific area of Regina in the inner northwest. Significant apartment complexes and businesses usually have their own unique postal code. Santa Claus' postal code is H0H 0H0. His mail goes via Montreal (where H0H mail goes ). My US postal code is more boring. 59256. 5 is the northern Plains. 9 is Montana and 2 is northeastern Montana. Some Americans seem to know that, as when I've given my US address, they've asked where in northeastern Montana I live (and then I explain that I don't live there at all, but rather just north of there in Saskatchewan). Modern US postal codes include four extra digits, but mine, -0055, just indicate that I'm at PO box 55 . (The mail is sorted manually there, but I imagine if fully coded, the sorting machines will put letter mail into box number order to facilitate processing by humans.)
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