A couple of months ago a parcel was delivered to our flat for somebody else, they had tried to deliver it to them but there was no answer so they asked if we would take it in for them. I always say ‘yes’ because it is a nice neighbourly thing to do and hopefully they will return the compliment one day.

The only rule I have when doing this is that I will not go chasing the person, the delivery man posts a note through their door telling them where their parcel is so they will come and get it when they are ready or able to.

Last week I found out that my dad had opened it.

I’m sure it is illegal to open someone else’s mail but we will not worry about that at the moment. I asked him why he opened the parcel that was clearly addressed to somebody else and his reply was “it is in MY HOUSE so I’m opening it.” Oh well that’s OK then.

Inside the parcel was a replacement screen for a laptop with a value of £80. My dad is now planning to SELL this on EBay via my sister. When I asked him what he would do if the guy came for his parcel he said “I’ll tell him I sent it back to the company”.

He does the same thing with letters as well. The lady who used to live here ran up about £15,000 in debts so she gets a lot of mail, we tell him to cross out the address and write “addressee unknown” and put it back in the post box.

He won’t though; he will open them all and then spend the rest of the day moaning about them. His reasoning is “this is MY HOUSE; I want to know what is going on.” Sometimes the new posties will put letters for next door through out letter box by mistake, he opens those as well to see what they have been up to.

I don’t want to have to turn into the kind of anal person who has to get to the post first so he doesn’t open post that isn’t addressed to him but I don’t think I will have much choice.

Photo by Vullioud Pierre-André from FreeImages