U.S. Postal Service puts a damper on family's Halloween party

One Connecticut family planning for an upcoming Halloween block party got a surprising trick for their treat from the U.S. Postal Service this week. After the Sickle family dropped invites in their neighbors' mailboxes, the mailman delivered the proverbial flaming bag of dog poo -- a bill from the USPS for postage.

Little did the Sickles know that it's against postal code regulations to leave notes in residential mailboxes unless they have paid postage. Eighty invites at 44 cents a pop means the Sickles were out $35.20 for Halloween party invites they hand-delivered themselves.

Consumerist can understand the need for such regulations, but wonders if this penalty was really necessary:

The regulation is probably meant to curtail marketers from spamming people's mailboxes, but come on, it's a freakin' Halloween block party thrown by the neighborhood. With the USPS hanging on for its life, is this really the best use of their time?

"It's very un-neighborly," one neighbor complained to WFSB. "We do it all the time for sending thank you notes, kid's birthday parties, anything," said another.

That must've been before Uncle Sam's mail carrier was about to be put out of business.