2026, Business, Government, home, Uncategorized, work

Natural Consequences

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Six months after our move into our home we continue to get mail addressed to the former owner. He still lives in town in a lovely refurbished apartment on Main Street just above his satellite communication business. I know it is lovely from the gossip of some electricians who were at our home and had been in the previous owners’ new place.

I always let him know when we get his mail. Sometimes he picks it up. Sometimes his elderly mom picks it up. She lives one block from us. About a month ago we received the property tax statement for his Main Street property along with some other mail from a finance company. I could tell what it was since the property tax envelope had been conveniently torn enough in transit for me to peek inside. I let him know via text that we had it. He texted that he was currently in Arizona and would pick it up when he got back to town in early April.

I saw him in his Jeep last week as I was going to the grocery store. He still hasn’t phoned to pick up his mail. I decided I am not going to remind him. The more we learn about him and his ways of dealing with things I think that he has been cossetted and coddled far too much by this community, and if his property taxes are delinquent, well, that may be a good lesson for him.

What natural consequences have you seen people deal with? What natural consequences have you experienced?

27 thoughts on “Natural Consequences”

  2. I keep a little pad of post-it notes downstairs and I have to admit that over the years I’ve used it more for communicating with the mail carrier than anything else. Personally, especially for the taxes thing, I would probably stick a post-it note on it that says “No longer at this address” and leave it for your mail carrier. Maybe after four or five of these the post office will get the message. We also had a wonky mail carrier two summers back who over the course of 4 months, left us someone else’s mail 6 times. My other close neighbors reported the same. Whipped out my post-it notes again with “Delivered to wrong address”!

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  3. Then there’s the other side of the coin. Last May, my beloved next-door neighbors (Minnie and Marie) moved about 10 blocks away (their new house is lovely). Not sure exactly what happened, but for the first seven or so months, every couple of weeks, some of their mail ended up with the new occupants of their old house. These new folks are very nice and very young and they always told ME that they had these pieces of mail. Never asked me if I had the new address, clearly never stuck a post-it not on it.

    So I would gather that mail and deliver it myself. I do enough errands that I can always tack it on and it’s not that far. Most times just put it in their mailbox and texted them that I had dropped it off. Nice dividends paid for this service — Marie just invited me to her school music program on Friday so I consider it a good trade!

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  4. Seems odd that the post office would send tax notices to an old address. Letters, junk mail, sure, but it’s surprising to me the property tax people don’t have current info.

    No need to put yourselves out for that!

    I think I’ve finally lived here long enough to no longer get Viking Cruise mail for a former owner who I knew to be deceased.

    Tangent-i realized I’ve know all the owners of the house next door (I think it was a GI bill house). People tend to come here to stay

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    1. The name on the tax form is his business name, which is just a three letter abbreviation with our house number as the address. The County Auditor didn’t know he had moved. I phoned and talked to her to make sure they had us as the owners of our house, which they did. We received the property tax statement for the house a few days after we got his.

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    1. I think I sowed some good things this National Jelly Bean Day.
      Brought bags of jelly beans to the library to honor yesterday’s National Library Workers Day plus Jelly Bean Day.
      Brought bags of Jelly beans to Franklin City tax “Bean counters.”
      The local police department got their fair share.
      Cleaning out Dollar Store supplies was gratifying.
      “There is more happiness in giving than receiving.”

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  6. I had to text the former owner today regarding who installed the gas fireplace in our livingroom, since it has been doing some funky things and he never had it cleaned or maintained and I am afraid to use it. The text would have been right below the tax form text. He got back to me about the fireplace but not the tax form. Hmm.

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  7. I received mail for the former owner of my new place for several months after closing last fall. Some of the mail appeared to be checks or payment to him for photography services. I know he moved to Mpls but I don’t know his address. I never met him and have no relationship with him. I do know his name and that he had two cats, which he walked outside on leashes. I also know that everyone in the neighborhood really liked him. If someone asks which unit I moved into, I just tell them “Fred’s,” and they know exactly where I live. Anyway, I write on the envelope: “No longer at this address”, return the item to the post office, and they figure it out.

    I changed my address with most of the businesses I use but I confess to missing a few. Once in a while I receive mail that has been forwarded from my old address, which triggers me to contact the sender with my new address. I made sure to contact Lake County right away since I pay property taxes there, but it’s not my primary residence. Rice County is really easy to work with and got my change of address with the sale of my old home and purchase of my new one. The big one I forgot about was my drivers license. I wasn’t allowed to renew my vehicle registration/tabs until I got my license updated. That worked out well though, because my license would have expired in April anyway.

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  8. When I moved into my apartment and first opened the mailbox, it was stuffed full with months worth of mail. Of course, I didn’t open any of it but secured it to make room for my correspondence. I worked up a stand-up bit to profile the addressee (Mr. Occupant) but never followed through out of privacy concerns.

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  9. As is often the case, I hope to come up with a specific example of Natural Consequences…

    Meanwhile it reminds me of a parenting book by Anthony Edwards that we read in the 80s: “Get Out of my Life: But First Could You Drive Me and Cheryl to the Mall?” Had lots of examples of the similar Logical Consequences.

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  10. I remember a story about a man who discovered that wasps had somehow gotten into his basement and were building a nest. With the prospect of disturbed angry wasps in his house, he called an exterminator to remove them. After the nest had been removed, the man asked the exterminator why he thought the wasps would choose to build a nest in a place they couldn’t escape. It didn’t make any sense.

    The exterminator replied, “We all make bad decisions sometimes.”

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    1. I know a man who built a canoe with his teen-age son in the basement of their house in south Minneapolis. It wasn’t until they were done that they realized that the canoe was too large to make it around a corner in their basement to get it upstairs. Fortunately there was a straight shot to a basement window facing their back yard. Unfortunately, the window needed to be enlarged by several inches in both width and height for the canoe to pass through. I don’t think they’ll ever make that mistake again.

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  11. I have been doing change of address, first with USPS, which he did not do. Quite easy to do now online for everywhere. They do make you pass security checks, which is good. Current plan is I move in up there day after tomorrow. When my daughter takes charge, things happen fast.
    In this building I have apartment 101. The mail carriers put in my box mail to a person who does live here with no box number. Our primary carrier and I make a joke of it.
    Clyde

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    1. Does your new place have a spot for them, or they history? Tell us about your new place, Clyde. I hope it’s one that you can settle into and feel comfortable in.

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      1. It is a senior independent living facility. I can buy lunch and supper as I wish. It is a very social place. Too social for me perhaps but I am too isolated now. Nice sized living room, larger than I have now. Bedroom is a bit larger than my larger bedroom here. Decent kitchen, small fridge. Very safe shower, which I really need. Daughter and s-i-l will now be only 30 minutes away. Willmar has lots of things. 4 grocery stores. My pharmacy, very good medical facilities.

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        1. That sounds wonderful. The safe shower is a big deal. It may take a while, but I’m sure you’ll figure out what social activities you want to participate in. Do they have a gym-type place where you can work out, and other shared facilities, like a library? I wish you the best.

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  13. Natural consequences experienced: After Husband’s stroke (almost 5 years ago), he regained the ability to do a lot of things, if a bit slower than before. Since I’m often in a hurry, I tend to do them because it’s quicker. Therefore he stops offering to do these things.

    So if I complain that he doesn’t do much around the house, I need to SLOW DOWN and let him do them, which at this point would be an extra effort…

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