2 Texans Down Under

Having two homes — Australia and the United States of America — is wonderful for us, but it creates a problem for someone else, the person who receives and sorts our mail at our US address. Perhaps some of you can relate.

In our case it is Kristi’s patient mother who receives mail addressed to us in Houston and sorts through it to see what envelopes, flyers, magazines, and catalogues we need to see and what pieces of mail we’ll be happy to have her discard.

The third possibility is “maybe they want to see this, maybe not.” Mail with that designation goes into a pile we sort through when we next show up to visit. It can be a substantial pile.

We’ve sent lots of change-of-address and stop-and-desist cards and letters to companies, without much effect. We’ve always wanted a way to shut off the flow of fat, glossy catalogues we got, especially in the months before Christmas.

Today, thanks to the folks at Tidbits, producer of an email newsletter I read to stay current with Mac computer issues, I’ve found a solution, or at least something that may help.

It’s an organization called “Catalogue Choice,” and it provides an easy way for anyone in the United States to request removal from the catalogue lists of thousands of companies.

It’s free, and the Tidbits folks say it works. Half a million people have signed up, as I did in about five minutes. You can, too. For their web page click here or go to http://www.catalogchoice.org.

Save a tree or two. Avoid some hassle, for yourself or, if you have two homes as we do, for someone collecting your mail back in the US.

You’ll still be able to order from Land’s End or Crutchfield Electronics, if you wish. Catalogue Choice gives you a record of the catalogs you’ve declined and links to the Web sites of those companies.

And, since you get to search for companies by name or browse the huge list Catalogue Choice maintains, you can check box after box but leave unchecked the Victoria’s Secret box, if you choose, and continue receiving their catalogue of lingerie models. Of lingerie, I mean.

(Kristi’s mom: If you’re reading this, I think Kristi must have bought something from Victoria’s Secret sometime or other a long time ago. You know how hard it is to get off lists.)

I don’t know of any similar service for Australians, but we rarely get catalogues in our mailbox here. What we could use, though, is a service that kept people from putting something else into our mail box: real estate flyers.

The average Brisbane house price went up more than 20% last year and agents are eager to find folks wanting to sell. Several times a week we get solicitations from property-hunger real estate purveyors.

At least their flyers are just a page or two long and, for a homeowner, there is a sort of soft-porn titillation in gazing at pictures of attractive Queenslanders or cottages with large price tags, blocked from view only by discrete “Sold” signs.