I think I've got the gist of your question, but please put me right if I haven't. I admit at the outset that your last situation had me a little confused.
On the first situation:
What matters here is the type of contact we're talking about. If your question explicitly mentions a letter or a telephone call or some other medium, then we're going to look at the third house. As the letter, etc is addressed to you, it's your third house. If you're sending it, then it's still your third house and therefore the third house of the chart.
If it's contact in a more general sense, such as 'Will she contact me?' then an aspect between Lord 1 and Lord 7 is what we're looking for - the planets involved are in contact.
Yes the question was asked in the round about way of "will they contact me"....but this would be via txt/call if they did, which is why i wasn't sure about using the 3rd house also.
Don't turn the chart unless it's really necessary. The more 'turns' there are, the more remote the significators become from the people involved. Sometimes it can't be avoided because the querent specifically asks about a letter sent from his Mother-in-Law or similar phraseology. In that case you don't have much choice. But if you can avoid it by rephrasing the question or getting agreement on a question, without losing the essential meaning, then interpreting the chart becomes a whole lot easier.
From reading this next paragraph i understand what your saying now....so maybe if i would have asked "will i be hearing from x via txt", then i would turn the chart. So if im using the 3rd house then the turned chart would put x in the 9th house. Am i correct ?
On that last situation. I don't quite follow unless you're talking about another person asking a question about something or someone (the quesited). In that case the seventh house person is likely to be the querent and should be given the first house.
Now I don't think that's quite what you meant, so can you give me an example of the sort of thing you meant.
Okay yes i thought you may not understand this one lol....so whats happened is, in a chart ive cast the quesited has landed in the 8th house with saturn, now i was kinda a bit puzzled why they were in this house, so i did some googling, and i came across a website
http://www.astrologyweekly.com/forum/showthread.php?t=26047.....scroll down to the 2nd reply from Bobzemco and that is where i got the information from.
In the chart i did, this did make sense....so i was just curious to know if i was using it the correct way. As the way i understood it is, the quesited is placed in the 8th house, but as its a 7th house matter asked about, then 7 are counted from the 8th making it 2nd.
So then if i was going to use this technique again.....if its once again a '7th house matter', and quesited lands in the 3rd, then 7th from 3rd would place them in the 9th so it could be (depending on a lot of other things, i know)....that the person asked about has gone away with his sister, or is travelling with his sister etc.