this post was submitted on 19 Jan 2026
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My mom saves up all her junk mail, and takes it to a neighborhood shredding event 2 or 3 times a year. She gets distressed if she misses it. She doesn't understand why I just toss it all away.
I've asked her why she thinks her junk mail address is so valuable, and she's afraid they will fall into the wrong hands. I've explained to her that if it's on junk mail, it's already out there being sold. It's just her name and address, it's a public record.
I get why she'd want to shred stuff with her SS# on it, but another AARP solicitation?
Be a good child now and buy your mom a shredder
She's got one, but she thinks the trucks will shred better, and the shreds wont be in her trash where people will know where they came from.
I should note that my mother lives in a gated, active adult community, and there is literally ZERO crime in her neighborhood. If someone started going through someone else's trash, you'd have a half a dozen busybodies demanding to know what you're up to.
wait lol, if she thinks her address is so valuable for strangers to steal, wouldn't that make tossing it somewhere other than home more risky? Not that there's much thought going into this routine.
You have shredder trucks going through your neighbourhoods like mendicant tinkers??
3 big trucks, and three lanes of cars, pull up, pop the trunk, guy takes out the boxes and bags from the back and tosses them into bins, that are later emptied into the trucks, and you drive away.
And trust they really do pulp your papers without sifting through for the good stuff.
What even is this? Who is providing this service in the first place? This is weird, right? It's not just me?
The Yellow and White Pages were a private business, and they sold the listings in the Yellow Pages, and also sold upgraded listings in the White Pages. Residential listings were free.
Then they'd drive around and drop them on peoples' front steps. I knew people that made extra cash at Phone Book Delivery Season.
There were also competing Yellow Pages by upstart companies, especially smaller local Yellow Pages. You might have the big giant book that was the whole city/county, and then have a smaller set for just your suburb. A small local business might spring for an decent ad in the local Yellow Pages, and just put a simple listing on the big one.
I think you lost [track of] the thread
I'm in the habit of shredding everything.
a) It's so fun to watch a stack of mailers turn into confetti
b) Deniability. If I only shred important documents, then all my shredded trash is now important. If I shred everything, nobody knows how much of it is important.
Mostly A though. I'm not yet worried about someone trying to reconstruct my shredded trash.
Very paranoid. I like it.
I just gather it throughout the year and burn it in winter. Atleast i get some value from all the junk mail.
I had a close friend with a super long ranch home, with a big open basement under the entire thing. He collected old phone books from all of his friends and anywhere he could get them, and stacked up at the end, and we would target shoot pellet guns and .22s into them. They made a perfect backstop for light gauges like that.
He was also a jeweler, and had his jewelery bench down there, so I would hang out and keep him company while he worked, and I put in a LOT of shooting hours. Became a pretty good shot.
It doesn’t get much more American than a phone book hoarder’s indoor shooting range!