I get at least 2 or 3 letters a week for previous residents of my house (and I've owned it for 10 years). Probably 1 or 2 packages a year too.

(Yes I follow the recommended process for dealing with it.)

UK: https://personal.help.royalmail.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/...

" It's my address but someone else's name

We deliver to addresses rather than names so our advice here would be to put a cross through the address and write on the item 'Not known at this address' or, 'No longer lives here' and post the item at your convenience - you won't need to apply any postage. Where applicable we will return the item to the sender hopefully allowing them to update their records. "

And even then it won't all stop. The direct marketers don't care and some financial companies are bound by law to keep sending the letters if they don't have an updated address for the old residents.

After we started doing this we got a couple of letters from the likes of Zurich Ltd addressed "to the householder" explaining that they'd love to stop sending us junk, but they have to, and if we could give them any details about where the old residents might be, that would be great. I wished them luck and told them the best we knew they'd moved abroad, permanently, possibly to Turkey.

Mildly off topic but I was a postman for a few years and the advice you linked to will get you almost all the way. Next time you get a letter that isn't for you put a big circle around the label, then put a cross through the circle. Don't write anything on it, but next time you see the postman give it directly to him/her/them and ask them to put it in with the blind letters. That will work. Probably.

I frequently receive mail for people who haven't lived in this house for a decade, so I challenge your assumption. The postman isn't paid enough to care.

Why? What if I have a guest coming over.

Also postman doesnt give a fuck.