Mail Forwarding options for rental property

We’re about to set up our first dedicated AirBnB in the US and it occurred to me to wonder how to handle occasional mail that may come to us as the property owners even though our permanent address is elsewhere. A “Change of Address” form with USPS doesn’t seem appropriate and it looks like even their deluxe mail forwarding services max out at 1 year anyway. So what are some services or techniques that people have tried (for good or ill!) ?

I dump out the mailbox every few months. It is only junk mail. I have all bills or tax info sent to my permanent address.

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If you don’t have a mail receptacle the Post Office won’t deliver mail. I don’t have one because my carrier leaves mail on the wall desk inside the front porch, but the substitute over Christmas left me an official notice that if I didn’t put up a box in 10 days mail delivery would stop. When my regular carrier came back after his vacation he just laughed, and handed me my mail.

So don’t have a mailbox, and make sure that only your home mailing address or PO box is listed with anyone who would be sending you mail, including your city property tax folks.

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And another thing — put in your House Rules that guests may not receive mail or packages at the house and they may not use the address to register for voting or any other reason, and that any packages or mail delivered to the house will be returned marked “unknown at this address”.

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All my bills go to my permanent address. If you have not already done so, call all the utility companies and provide them with your permanent address. We have a really nice neighbor that brings out the garbage bins to the curb on garbage day pick up and takes out the junk mail out of the mail box. If you have a friendly neighbor, you can ask them to throw away your junk mail and as a thank you buy them a gift card.

Can’t your co-host forward the mail?

We’re actually doing a lot of work on the property prior to listing it. So I was looking at forwarding options but wasn’t sure they would last long enough. But you’re right, maybe I just need to do it for a couple months to make sure everything is going to the right address (noting anything that got redirected and updating them), and then once the property is actually running as an AirBnB on a day to day basis it won’t be necessary. I guess I was over-thinking.

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What’s your relationship to Magic Helpers @lindaaustin?

I use a mail service. They can scan or forward anything important.

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You resurrected a year and a half old thread to post this? Is this an ad for your personal business?

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You’re right. The only thing that went to my listing by mistake was my property tax bill, so don’t forget to update that information. My mailman had me bury a “Vacant” notice deep inside my mailbox so I would not get any mail/junk mail. After awhile I removed it due to paranoia (incase someone was snooping), but they still almost never put anything in there unless there is a substitute driver. I think I did put in the 1 year extended mail forwarding to begin with, though, just to catch anything I may have forgotten.