PO Box
 

I am renting a home in TV from March1st thru April12th and was informed that I needed to rent a PO Box from either USPS or UPS to have my mail forwarded. Does anyone have advice about doing this?

Are you saying that the owners of your rental won't give you the key to the mail box so you can have your mail sent down here?

Are most of your bills set up for paperless (email) delivery? If not, I would do that right away. Also, if you are signed up for "informed delivery" (I think that is what it is called) from the USPS you would know if anything important was delivered. Is there someone "back home" who could be trusted to open any important mail and send you a cell phone picture?

Renting a box and setting up mail forwarding seems like a lot of trouble for < six weeks.

kathy

Most likely the owners are not extending use of their mailbox because they are still in the area using it.

Why not stop by your local P.O. that normally delivers your mail and get info/suggestions straight from them?

Seems to me it would be easier and quicker to rent a p.o. box if you can do that over the phone rather than set up bills for email...unless you trust that sorta info over the computer, of course! There are facilities convenient to most Villages where p.o. boxes are available to rent.

You didn't mention in what area you live. If you're in the Brownwood area there is a post office on Hwy 301 in the Wildwood shopping center north of 44, it's on the left end of the center near Ace Hardware. If you're in Pine Ridge area there is a post office in Fruitland Park on 466A left side just before the red light to CR25. If you're in the middle section there is a post office in Oxford, go west on 466 past Walmart, turn right on 301 and it will be on the left next to Gio's Italian Deli.

One problem, I believe the post office will require at least a 6 month rental. There is mailing shops in many shopping centers, just as Pinellas, Colony, etc, they sometimes will rent private boxes for shorter terms like 3 months.

Villages PacknShip will rent you a PO Box for about $20 a month.

Forwarding mail for that short of time period will probably not work very well. By the time the USPS starts forwarding it, you will need to reverse the process. It would be better if you can have someone close to your permanent house pick up your mail, or maybe hire a home watch service to do it.

This is the way to go.

Post office forwarding
 

We have been renting since the beginning of the year and had our Michigan mail forwarded. The forwarding has been very slow and somewhat spotty. I have informed delivery where I see what is coming to the Michigan address and when. It can easily take 2-to-3 weeks for a piece of mail to make it down here.

The Post Office has a new premium service where they bundle all the mail to be forwarded once a week and send it as priority mail. It is somewhat costly (as I recall about $20 per week) so I didn’t sign up for it, but may think about it more seriously another year.