Things to Do - Remove from Mailing List

i know that i get a lot of mail. our postal person tends to leave catalogues in a pile by our mailboxes, and, of the five apartments, mine gets the most. i've been an online buyer for years: clothes, bedspreads, air filters, cat filters, cat trees, rugs, face cream, furniture, music, books, vitamins, protein powder, gluten-free products, shoes... couple that with a modest amount of magazine subscriptions and you have a whole lot of catalogues from places i've shopped and those i hope never to shop at as well as offers for "free trials" from a number of magazines which i've always been able to resist (even though it would have been so easy to tear off the perforated reply card and worry about paying later). oh, i forgot to mention that donations to charities will certainly lead to a mailbox that you have to empty daily. those mailing labels and notepads they send to entice or guilt you into donating certainly are bulky.

i spent some time on saturday emailing a few businesses, requesting to be removed from mailing lists. i just spent another fun half hour emailing a few more. while i'm going to be forwarding my mail to m*'s parents house, i don't want them to have to deal with the onslaught of junk mail or pay to ship it to the uk. so to those who are moving or just want to cut down on the amount of unsolicited mailings, give yourself some time.

oh, a very helpful number that i found on an american express mailing is 1-888.5.OPT.OUT. i get so many offers from cc companies and banks that sometime include checks to use for balance transfers, and i am worried (ok, a bit paranoid) about what happens if they don't get forwarded or forwarded correctly. i thought that i had to contact each company separately, but it turns out by calling this number "you can choose to stop receiving "prescreened" offers of credit from us and other companies."

businesses/ organizations contacted in the month or so before leaving (there were so many more but, oh god, how i came to detest this task!)
sierra club
spcala
amnesty international
kcet
crate and barrel
j crew
vermont country store
loehmann's
pier 1
wine spectator
skinstore.com
the territory ahead
covenant house
national audubon society
(while i emailing the audubon, i thought of the plight of the wandering albatross. over 100,000 are killed every year due to commercial fishing practices which could, seemingly, be easily modified. i ended making a small donation to birdlife international.)
staples
bank account #1
(still keeping but finally cancelling paper statements)
ll bean
flor
sharper image
kitten rescue
la opera
ucla alumin
aaa
ralphs
footsmart
blick art supplies
national park foundation
dansk
santa monica college
national parks and conservation association
hammacher schlemmer
office depot
doctors without borders
oriental trading company (what is this?!)