post boxes

[stever]

We are new owners (about a month ago).  There isn't a post box, I think the previous owners took the box with them.  There is a hole in the fence where a box used to be.

We were informed that it would be full of junk mail within a few weeks and as we will be visiting as a holiday home, we are not sure if we need one or what is the best solution.  All of the companies that we will be dealing with, ie electricity, water have our English address.

What do people suggest?

[Opel Fruit<P><BR>Opel Fruit, Dept. 53<P>]

It is a legal requirement to have a post box - although this can be based at the local La Poste and collected periodically. You are likely to receive factures from functions that you have not given your UK address to. To stop the prospecti flooding the box, it is customary to put a polite note on the box, together with your surname, saying so.

Unless the old post box was particularly ornate, removal was very petty - what else did they take?

[Anton Redman]

Buy a box, label it 'Pas de Publicity' and or get to know you postperson, find a trusted neighbour, give him or her some stamps, and open the box bin the rubbish and send any bills you have missed to the UK

[Patter]

Whenever we go away in the camping car the post lady stops the "junk mail", but i miss it, i like to know what bargains are on, about a month ago, we went away for a fortnight, and when we got back there was no junk mail, a few days later talking to a friend she said had i seen the intermarche brochure, there was a cruise advertised, we looked at her brochure and my husband booked us a cruise, so i personally enjoy the junk mail.

tricia b

[Owens88]

I certainly did not know there was a legal requirement for a box. My house is in a co-prop and oesn't appear to have had one in over a decade.

 

In fact I went in to the Poste to try and arrange re-direction (which is now formalised at a lot of money per year) and they ,sort of, talked me out of it.

 

John