How to close old email accounts

I`m about to get a new email address as I am fed up with the amount of spam that I have been having to sift through with my current one.

Getting a new address is pretty simple but is there a way to shut my old one down permanently? Do I just contact my ISP and ask them or can I do it myself?

Also, on average, how long does it take for a new account to start to accumulate spam?

Any help would be most helpful.

Cheers,
Jason.

What i did last time i did it was set up an autoresponder/autodelete saying "Due to spam my address had changed, that this account is no longer monitored and please contact me via my website for my new one" (which was fairly well protected by a 'human test').

I got spam to my new domain within minutes of me setting up the first email address. I route everything through Google's mail service now, it filters out nearly all spam for me.

I have received only 1 or 2 spam messages with gmail, and I've had the account for a very long time.

Me too. However Thunderbird is fairly good at weeding them out. If you've got your own server, try SPAMAssassin. If not, suggest your ISP installs it. You can't be the only one whose fed up with it. In either case, don't bother closing your existing account. Just leave the account at your ISP, and let them sort it out.

Me too, it's ridiculous. SPAMAssassin really does help tho'.

Flameduck: Why on earth wouldn't you ask the ISP to close the mailbox if you never intend to use it anymore?

Leaving it open only wastes their resources, and can thereby have a (tiny) negative impact on your 'good' account on their servers. Plus people that genuinely try to reach you would be under the mistaken impression that you'd received their message without the rejection notice (until you run out of space, but even then -- a "mailbox full" error looks temporary, "mailbox not found" is somewhat more permanent)

I can't even remember the last time I received spam on either my gmail or hotmail accounts. Their filters seem to work just fine.

It has been pointed out that certain email addresses are more likely to receive spam than others though. It's all about the letters that make it up and the way spam bots cycle through addresses when sending stuff.

It's been pointed out that an address starting with the letter 'a' receives significantly more spam than an address starting with an 'x' for instance. This is all statistical though, so may not apply to all.

Because if I was getting a crappy service from my ISP, I really couldn't care less about wasting their resources, one way or the other.

People who genuinely try to reach me, wouldn't really be under the mistaken impression that I'd received their mail, if I hadn't responded within a couple of days. Particularly if they're well aware my ISP is useless, and their mail probably drowned in the 4000'ish spam mails I get a day.