subsequently heard nothing back indicating that its attempts had failed. In Dusenbery, for example, the government knew that someone at the prison had signed for the letter. The knowledge that notice had failed was instead "a new wrinkle," and the question before the Court was therefore whether that knowledge constituted a circumstance that alters what notice is required. The Court believed that most federal courts of appeals and state supreme courts to have addressed this issue have decided that the government must do something more when it learns its attempt at notice has failed before it can sell real property in a tax sale. Many states also require by statute more than a simple notice by mail to the delinquent owner. The means by which service of notice is attempted "must be such as one desirous of actually informing the absentee might reasonably adopt to accomplish it," Whether a particular method is adequate is determined by balancing the "interest of the State" against "the individual interest sought to be protected by the Fourteenth Amendment." In this case, the Court, emphasized, "we evaluate the adequacy of notice prior to the State extinguishing a property owner's interest in a home," which the Court considered "an important and irreversible prospect." The Court did not believe that someone who actually desired to inform the owner would do nothing further when a certified letter is returned unclaimed, and satirized the State's position by analogy. "If the Commissioner prepared a stack of letters to mail to delinquent taxpayers, handed them to the postman, and then watched as the departing postman accidentally dropped the letters down a storm drain, one would certainly expect the Commissioner's office to prepare a new stack of letters and send them again. No one ‘desirous of actually informing’ the owners would simply shrug his shoulders as the letters disappeared and say ‘I tried.’ Failure to follow up would be unreasonable, despite the fact that the letters were reasonably calculated to reach their intended recipients when delivered to the postman." The Court noted prior cases in which the government had been required to take notice of "unique information about an intended recipient" that it had known prior to its attempt at notice. In Robinson v. Hanrahan, , the Court had ruled that notice of forfeiture proceedings sent to a vehicle owner's home address was inadequate when the State knew that the property owner