Dead letter office

A dead letter office (DLO) is a facility within a postal system where undeliverable mail is dealt with. Mail is considered to be undeliverable when the address is invalid so it cannot be delivered to addressee, and there is no return address so it cannot be returned to the sender.

At a DLO, mail is usually opened to try to find an address to forward to. If an address is found, the envelope is usually sealed using tape or postal seals, or enclosed in plastic bags and delivered. If the letter or parcel is still undeliverable, valuable items are then auctioned off while the correspondence is usually destroyed. Despite this practice, in the past some undeliverable envelopes were acquired by philatelists.

Dead letter offices go by different names in different countries. Other names include returned letter office or undeliverable mail office.

Canada

Canada Post sends mail which is not deliverable to the Undeliverable Mail Office (NUMO) at Mississauga, Ontario or North Sydney, Nova Scotia. Domestic mail which is still undeliverable after passing through NUMO is then destroyed, while incoming international undeliverable mail is returned to the country of origin.

Dead Letter Office (film)

Dead Letter Office is a 1998 Australian film starring Miranda Otto.

Production

It was shot in May and June 1997.

References

External links

Dead Letter Office (album)

Dead Letter Office is a rarities and B-sides collection by R.E.M., released in 1987. The album is essentially a collection of many additional recordings R.E.M. made pre-Murmur to Lifes Rich Pageant that were outtakes or released as flip sides to their singles internationally. Many of the tracks are favorite cover versions indicating the band's disparate influences and musical tastes, including three Velvet Underground covers, and songs by Pylon, Aerosmith and Roger Miller.

Guitarist Peter Buck composed wry, self-deprecating (and, in one instance, apologetic) liner notes to the songs on the album. Buck initially had doubts about releasing it, saying he felt as though people would perceive the album as the band "trying to cash in, maybe to sell some records," as the ultimate release date predated that of the band's final studio album with I.R.S., Document, by a mere five months.

The album was initially issued as a 15-song collection on vinyl and cassette, but when its CD edition appeared (now the only available edition of Dead Letter Office) the five tracks from the band's 1982 Chronic Town EP were added. This is also the only current CD availability of Chronic Town.

Dead letter mail

Dead letter mail or undeliverable mail is mail that cannot be delivered to the addressee or returned to the sender. This is usually due to lack of compliance with postal regulations, an incomplete address and return address, or the inability to forward the mail when both correspondents move before the letter can be delivered. Largely based on the British model that emerged in the late eighteenth century, many countries developed similar systems for processing undeliverable mail.

The term 'dead mail' is perhaps a misnomer, and several jurisdictions have opted for the use of the term 'undeliverable mail' as more clearly representing the status of the item whose transmission has been impeded. Being internal departments within postal administrations, little information about the dead letter office function has ever been made public. A few journal articles and at least one recently published book (Canadian) dealing with this topic have appeared.

Classification as a dead letter is one of the few instances where postal personnel are allowed to violate secrecy of correspondence, ostensibly to search for clues as to the letter's origin or destination. Countries must also set up regulations for the disposal of dead letters, particularly when they contain items of value. Some very valuable items have turned up in undeliverable mail, including a stolen painting by Marc Chagall which turned up in a United States Postal Service sorting center in Topeka, Kansas.

Dead letter (disambiguation)

A dead letter is one that can neither be delivered nor returned to sender. The term may also mean:

List of Murder, She Wrote episodes

This is a list of Murder, She Wrote episodes in the order that they originally aired on CBS. Most of the episodes took place either in Jessica's fictional hometown of Cabot Cove, Maine, or in New York City, but her travels promoting books or visiting relatives and friends led to cases throughout the U.S. and the English-speaking world.

Beginning in season six, Angela Lansbury cut back her appearances. Thirteen episodes purported to be stories "written" by Jessica, or submitted to her by friends. She would introduce each episode, but generally disappear until the end, when she would wrap up the story. Other sleuths, professional and amateur, including reformed jewel thief turned insurance investigator Dennis Stanton (Keith Michell), retired British intelligence operative Michael Hagarty (Len Cariou), and down-at-heel private eye Harry McGraw (Jerry Orbach), took center stage. These episodes became known as "bookend episodes." Viewers, however, didn't like Jessica's frequent absences, and the "replacement detective" policy was eventually dropped.