Nine Months Later, We Are Still Getting Barrys Pizza Menus

They know his name is Barry. They know he was, at some point, extremely invested in a specific pizza chain's loyalty scheme, based on the sheer volume of promotional leaflets still arriving nine months after he moved out. They know, from a birthday card that arrived in month three and was gently redirected by hand, that he has a sister called Denise who writes in extremely neat cursive. They have never met Barry.

Priti didn't expect the post to be a whole ongoing saga when she and her partner exchanged into the flat. She'd thought about the big stuff - the rooms, the area, the rent - and not once, not for a single second, considered that a stranger's entire correspondence life would keep quietly arriving through her letterbox for the better part of a year.

Most of it's easy enough to deal with - write "not at this address" and pop it back in a postbox, or just bin the takeaway menus and bank the mild curiosity. But there was one moment, around month six, when what was clearly an important-looking letter from a hospital arrived for Barry, and Priti spent a genuinely stressful twenty minutes trying to figure out how to get it to him, before her partner pointed out that redirecting the actual important stuff and simply enduring the pizza menus was probably the correct balance of effort.

Her actual advice, mundane as it is: when you move, redirect your own post properly and as early as you can - and expect to spend a good while being an accidental custodian of someone else's mail regardless. Barry, if you're reading this: the sofa you left behind lasted us four years and we think about you fondly every time a leaflet arrives. Budget a little patience for whoever's post you'll inevitably inherit along the way.