What happened when letters gone astray?

Postmen can be careless. In fact, these days, we are often faced with wrongly delivered letters meant for some other people. When we think about it, it would also mean that our letters could have been sent elsewhere too. This is not so bad as those among bags which were deliberately thrown away, saving the postman the trouble of delivering them.

Now, what do we normally do with those letters wrongly delivered to us? This morning, our part-time cleaner handed me a letter addressed to my in-law's old address. Only the house no. was correct and the housing estate, by sheer coincidence, happened to be hers, AND of the same road! I suggested that she give it to the house number (minus the last of the 3 digits, as is likely to be the cause of the mistake) but she would rather that either I, or she, put it back into the post box!

Now, it may seem a bit selfish on her part, but truth be told, I have done that before for good reasons. It may seem like a simple errand of handing over a letter to a neighbour, friendly or otherwise, but the implications can be the notion that you could have secretly opened and seen the contents and re-sealed it before delivering! So to avoid any misunderstanding, whether reasonable or not, it is best to put it back into the red box, after all, it was due to their carelessness to start with.
Link