Unsafe post

In the ground floor foyer of a block where Property Sparrow has a flat, there's a purple plastic crate. It's the type you could buy at the market at £5 for a stack of five. It's about 18" high, with no lid and full to the brim with post.

As a rough estimate there's two years of unopened post in the crate. It's all correctly delivered but it's not for anyone who lives there. It's all for tenants who have moved out.

Has no one heard of identity theft? There's not much redirecting going on here. The current residents seem to chuck all of the post that's not for them into the crate but that's as far as it goes. There are envelopes from Aviva, British Gas, BT, Capital One, Domino Pizza - it's like an A-Z of landlord and tenant activities.

One of the non-resident leaseholders has, however, now taken on the crate. He's put his foot down, insisting that all of the other leaseholders give him the names of their current tenants. He recently spent a whole afternoon clearing out the crate, writing 'not known at this address' on all of the envelopes addressed to anyone who is not living there and stuffing them into the nearest postbox.

Good for him; the block looks neater and safer already.

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