I am a snowbird. I registered for informed delivery, so I see images of all of the mail I am receiving in both The Villages and up north in daily emails. I paid the buck to do temporary change of addresses online. Mail forwarding from up north to The Villages works pretty well; the reverse is an abomination.
I registered my change of address online from The Villages to up north last June. At the beginning of July, I had a USPS package delivered to my house in The Villages; it was never forwarded. In July I had several pieces of mail arrive in the The Villages; they were finally forwarded up north in October.
My temporary change of address from The Villages to up north was supposed to expire a couple of weeks ago; but I think mail is still being forwarded. When a piece of mail is going to be forwarded, USPS stamps a barcode at the bottom of the piece of mail. As of yesterday, informed delivery email shows me images of mail with the barcode still being stamped. When I go online to try to manually cancel the change of address through the USPS website, it will not allow me to and gives me a message that the change of address is still being processed; if the change of address had truly ended, when I enter the change of address code, it should tell me that it is invalid.
If you are going to go this route, make sure you schedule your change of address a few days before you leave. Then hang out at your mailbox. When the mail carrier invariably screws up and delivers mail to you that should be forwarded, you can remind him that mail should be forwarded, not delivered. Even that may not work; it certainly didn't work for me last June.
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