No, I didn’t move!

I was away from home for a couple of weeks. I didn’t think to have delivery stopped and held at the post office. When I got home, my mailbox was flagged VACANT with instructions for the new residents to get their new address on file.

I fully admit this was on me, as two weeks is a bit of a period. But I receive so little mail, even when I’m home I tend to pick it up only every three days or so.

Thankfully, the post office had my handful of mail held. But I wanted to know what sort of time period would trigger this in the future. Was it two weeks? Ten days? A week? Five days?

The answer (before I even had a chance to finish asking the question) was to point me toward the mail hold forms. As I’m trying to avoid extra work for them (and me), I’m not going to have my mail held every time I’m gone more than a day. So I asked, “What’s the cutoff for when a carrier can decide a unit’s vacant and stop delivering?” The answer was the hold form is for a minimum of three days, but can’t be used for more than thirty.

This I knew. I’ve had my mail held before. But I was unable to really get a clear answer to my question. Finally, the clerk said the form should be used any time it’ll be three days or longer.

Really? Three days? I’m often gone for longer than three days. If I were receiving Taylor Swift’s fan mail, I can see it, but it seems like a lot of extra effort if it’s for less than a week. It seems a little more like a CYA so if they do this again after four days, they can say I was warned not to let it go more than three.

Am I out of line here? If I am, I’ll accept the criticism. But is there a more official, reasonable time to not assume that I’ve vacated the premises?