Mailing address vs. Resident address?

[Buckalew11]

Lots (or all?) towns in RI have villages. The village I live in has a post office, but that isn't the post office that delivers to our house. The post office for a village in the next town over delivers to our house.

It used to be a real PITA. For US mail (including packages) we needed to use the next town(village)/zip (our mailing address) to deliver to our house, and the UPS or FedEx had to have the actual town(village)/zip (our resident address) to deliver to our house.

Nowadays, we just use our mailing address for everything, because the US Post Office won't make the effort anymore to deliver to our house if the wrong zip is used (ie, if it's sent to our actual town/village PO, they won't send it to the PO in the next town to deliver it...they would just "return to sender") whereas UPS and FedEx make every effort to just make their delivery, and at this point, they've caught on to the discrepancy.

I've also had people, back when the kids were in elementary school raise an eyebrow and question me on why I was sending my kids to "Smithtown" if I actually lived in "Jonestown", since my mailing address said "Jonestown" as if I was trying to pull something over on the school system.

Our STREET on any address is the same "123 Smith Street".

When we first moved here, we actually paid a fire tax on my DH's motorcycle to a 3rd village, which turned out to be an error which we let go on for a while because it was something like $8 a year.

Just another annoying situation...to use the town beaches, you had to show your license at the gates. However, my license has my mailing address, which is not the town I live in. So every year, I'd have to get a letter from the town saying that I DO actually live in this town.

Last election, AFTER the election, my DD got a notice that she couldn't vote in our distract (AFTER she already had) because she didn't live in our district, and referred her to the district in the next town/village. Nice to know they have all that voting stuff under control.

THere will be a test on this at the end of the thread.

This reminds me of folding things and Road ID. Oh yes it does!

 

[Rylee]

This reminds me of when our children were young and they had such a hard time grasping...

We have a 123 address,
and a 123 phone number.
They attend school in 456
but we live in 789.

(And go figure... even with a 123 address and phone number, the 123 pizza places won't deliver to us because we are outside of the city, by less than a mile.)

Resident address = where the home is located.
Mailing address = where you have your mail sent, usually a P.O. box, but for example, my daughters kept our address as their mailing address even though they were living in apartments in other towns while away at college.

 

[Coconut36]

Some areas are like that. My parents mailing address for instance is one city but their water bill is a different city (generally your mailing city and city on your water bill match).

 

[Gumbo4x4]

For voting purposes I'm in "Lyon Township". My physical/mailing address is Leslie, Missouri. Here's the real fun part, you cannot physically get from my house to the actual town of Leslie, MO unless you pass through either Gerald, MO or Beaufort, MO first (depending on which route you take). And both of those towns have fully functioning post offices

 

[SandrA9810]

I know some one who lives on the border of a state. Their home address is up a mountain road, which UPS and Fed Ex will deliver to. Yet the mailbox is down on the main road, which is considered to be in the next state over and not even handled by their own town's PO. They gave up and got a PO box for mail delivered by the USPS

Miami is another funny place. There's several cities within Miami and their own name, but all you have to do is label it "Miami" and it still gets delivered.

 

[maslex]

OP here, yeah I probably worded my whole post wrong. This lady just made my head spin, I guess. I understand that the place where your house is...is your residential address and where you get your mail is your mailing address. I get that.

What I didn't understand is if I pay my property taxes in Plainfield, my mail comes from the Plainfield post office, I have a Plainfield phone number, blah, blah, blah, why is she saying that I live in Wauregan? That's where I was getting confused.

 

[FireDancer]

OP here, yeah I probably worded my whole post wrong. This lady just made my head spin, I guess. I understand that the place where your house is...is your residential address and where you get your mail is your mailing address. I get that.

What I didn't understand is if I pay my property taxes in Plainfield, my mail comes from the Plainfield post office, I have a Plainfield phone number, blah, blah, blah, why is she saying that I live in Wauregan? That's where I was getting confused.

I think where you pay property taxes or the city named on the home's title is the best indicator. Other stuff is kind of arbitrary depending on where you live, especially if it is rural.

 

[ohiomom28]

OP here, yeah I probably worded my whole post wrong. This lady just made my head spin, I guess. I understand that the place where your house is...is your residential address and where you get your mail is your mailing address. I get that.

What I didn't understand is if I pay my property taxes in Plainfield, my mail comes from the Plainfield post office, I have a Plainfield phone number, blah, blah, blah, why is she saying that I live in Wauregan? That's where I was getting confused.

Tell her to mind her own business. I don't see why her opinion matters. I wouldn't stress about it as long as you know where you live

 

[It'sWDW4me]

My first BF lived in the town of Tatamy which is a nice, quiet town sandwiched between two bigger towns/cities. He had a Tatamy address, went to the Nazareth Area School District, and had an Easton area phone number!

 

[kaytieeldr]

OK, I live in Plainfield. I don't have a PO Box. I have a regular mailbox at the end of my driveway and my mail comes from the Plainfield post office. I've lived here 20yrs and don't reside anywhere else during the year.
This is where it gets weird, I guess. My neighborhood (which consists of 4 streets) is basically in the middle of two smaller towns. Not sure how that happened, but it is what it is. LOL I guess since we're "sandwiched" in between these other two towns, people mistakenly take us for living in either Wauregan or Central Village (those are the other two towns) Each of these towns have their own zipcode and their own post office. Wauregan has both PO Boxes and regular mailboxes. Central Village on the other hand, just has PO Boxes and does NOT deliver mail. Like I said earlier, we have had people/companies write out our address as being in either Wauregan or Central Village. And when it comes to our house, I've noticed that it was crossed off and "Plainfield" was written instead. So I'm assuming that since my mailing addres is Plainfield and my residence is in Plainfield, that should mean that I live in Plainfield, right? She's telling me that since I pay my fire taxes in Wauregan, that's where I live. I'm sooooo confused. LOL

Your residential address and mailing address are the same. You live in Plainville. The post offices in all three towns know this.

That some people who send you things don't, or that this woman is an argumentative busybody with too much time on her hands who really could expend that energy on something important? Not yours t worry about .

 

[Cheshire Figment]

To add to the confusion.

Kissimmee is an incorporated city in Osceola County.

Celebration is an unincorporated area within Osceola County. MY PO Box is in Celebration. Even though I use Celebration as my mailing address about 1/3 of my magazines or bills come addressed to me in Kissimmee.

To make matters worse, I physically live in Poinciana, which is in Polk County. However, the first three digits of my Zip Code are 347, which is the same as Kissimmee. So some (usually junk) mail addressed to me at home says Kissimmee. Not only am I not in the city, but not even the same county.

 

[design_mom]

My back yard forms the "city limit" for our town. The family who lives behind me still gets their mail from the town post office, but they are not considered city residents for the purpose of taxes or town park-and-rec activities (residents pay one rate, non-residents pay another). I think they are technically "unincorporated _____ county."

Before we moved to this neighborhood, we lived within city limits for the major city in our area, but our mail was delivered by one of the suburban post offices. We got mail addressed to us with the city's name, and mail addressed with the suburb's name (same zip). Both were delivered to us, but we technically lived in the city, not the suburb.

 

[HM]

My mailing address is for a town in the county next to the county I live in. I pay taxes and vote in the county/city I live in, but my mail is addresses and delivered to me at an address for the other city.

A lot of what you describe and what is my experience has to do with being annexed by a town based on where your house is. Legally, I live in one city but my address is for another.

Sounds to me like you live in Plainfield. You pay taxes there and your water bill comes from them right?

 

[snykymom]

I used to live in Radnor, PA. Not the Radnor that's part of Lower Merion Township, but the Radnor that's in Upper Merion Township (even though both are contiguous). Different government, different taxes, different school districts. I had a Wayne area code and a King of Prussia zip code (or maybe it was the other way around?).

It was really tough explaining to people where I lived!

 

[trip]

Growing up I lived in a very rural area. Our township did not have a post office. Our mailing address was the next town but we paid taxes, voted, etc in our town.

 

[chelle3807]

What a small world. I grew up in Plainfield! I think where the confusion lies is that Plainfield is made up of four "villages" - Plainfield, Moosup, Central Village and Wauregan. Growing up I lived in the Town of Plainfield but the village of Moosup. All my mail was sent to the Moosup address. Sounds like this woman feels you should say you live in Wauregan for some reason (maybe since fire taxes are paid to Wauregan?). Don't worry about what she thinks and hello to fellow Plainfield native.

 

[MaryAnnDVC]

This reminds me of folding things and Road ID. Oh yes it does!

We'll find a test you can pass.

 

[Buckalew11]

We'll find a test you can pass.

You'd better hurry because on top of it all, the forgetfulness is getting worse.

 

[maslex]

What a small world. I grew up in Plainfield! I think where the confusion lies is that Plainfield is made up of four "villages" - Plainfield, Moosup, Central Village and Wauregan. Growing up I lived in the Town of Plainfield but the village of Moosup. All my mail was sent to the Moosup address. Sounds like this woman feels you should say you live in Wauregan for some reason (maybe since fire taxes are paid to Wauregan?). Don't worry about what she thinks and hello to fellow Plainfield native.

Wow, what a small world!!! Yeah, I think that's where people get confused. I live up by the elementary school behind the high school. So Wauregan is just a few streets to the North and Central Village is just a mile to the South but our little neighborhood is actually Plainfield.

It's not that I'm getting my panties all in a bunch over what this woman is saying but she's known for being a busy body-know it all. LOL I just thought that maybe I was missing something in the whole mailing address vs resident address.

It's funny though, I'm not sure how long ago you moved from the area but Wauregan is not the best of places to live, shall we say. But our little neighborhood is in the "good part of town". And I have a smart-*** guy at work who calls my neighboorhood, "Wauregan Estates". Guess we're in the "upper class".

Where abouts in Moosup did you live. I've been driving school bus throughout Plainfield, Moosup, Wauregan and Central Village now for 11yrs. Nice talking to a fellow "neighbor"

 

[Poohforyou]

I don't live in the town list as my official address. I live in the township surrounding the town. We have 3 towns within our township that all have post offices. The township itself doesn't have one. People outside these towns but within the township share the post office of the town closet to them.

If you asked me where I live I'd say the township not the town.