We live in an apartment, and as such have a small mailbox in the front part of the building. I don’t always get to check my mail every day of the week, and lately it seems we’ve been getting an excessive amount of mail, most of it junk, albeit directly addressed to us. Our mail carrier also delivers a wad of ads called “ShopWise” which is delivered on Tuesdays and totally fills the mailbox from top to bottom – this is addressed to “Resident” and our apt number. Its all coupons and ads for some local and national businesses (ie, Rite Aid, Big Lots, etc). In over a year of living here I have only read it on rare occasion and never use any of the coupons from it.

I hadn’t checked our mail on Monday and we apparently got a big pile of stuff since its the holidays and everyone is sending holiday cards and such. I also got a Netflix, and Bart got quite a lot of mail, some bills, mostly credit card junk mail. On Tuesday I retrieved the mail, and found it all crunched up in the bottom of our mailbox because the postal carrier decided to stuff the “ShopWise” mailer in on top of it and smash it all down so it would fit. Because of this, when I opened the mailbox about half of everything in it spilled out on the floor everywhere. I took the “ShopWise” and put it on top of the mailboxes and left it there because I didn’t want it.

Today when I went to check our mail the only thing I found in the mailbox was the  “ShopWise” mailer, with a note written on the back of it – “This is mail! Please treat it that way! Thanks” — this is where I vehemently disagree. This is NOT mail. This is a prime example of “Unsolicited Bulk Advertising.” Or, the real-world version of spam.