House Numbers

I live in a small village with no numbers just house names - I have signs on the road side garden wall - on the front of the house and at the back entrance - deliveries have never been an issue except for one particular company - I know when they are being used I will end up wandering around the village (approx 25 houses) trying to find my parcel…..

I know, haven't done it for a while now but I hate when you have to piece together from clues which house is number 27.

I think sometimes neighbours do shrug and think, well next door is clearly marked 29 so we don't need to do anything. But yeh, is it 27, 31, 28 or 30.

We have only had postcodes in Ireland for about 9 years but my post code which I do use all the time is my house. Specifically.

IME the very people who won't use it typically live in a townland with three families with the same surname. A woman I had to send a letter to (work) rang to chastise me for not putting her full first name in the address. I had Ms A McNamara and she was furious because her sister in law was also Ms A McNamara now knew all of her financials. The rest of the address was something unspecific like lowerlands Co kerry. shudda given us an eircode

I do not have a number because the village where I live has never been allocated them. It consists of approximately 100 properties and with the exception of 4 small closes we all have house names. The postcode gets delivery drivers to roughly the right area and then they have to look for house names which are often hidden or nonexistent. Dog walks often include giving directions to new delivery drivers, I do feel sorry for them. Why we have never had numbers I do not know.

Agree completely. Can any offenders explain why they do not put the number or name up?

Completely agree, the time I've spent looking at numbers either side to see the one I'm looking for. And agree on the emergency services, must be so frustrating for them!

Yep this is such an issue. Im emergency services and there's nothing worse than knowing someone desperately needs your help and you're counting numbers in the dark trying to work out which is the right house.

Just put a number on your door. A clear bold and preferably lit number visible from the road.

Yep I agree. We’re in a badly shaped cul de sac where the even numbers are one side and the odd numbers are the other and it’s mightily confusing for delivery drivers.

Having an obvious number on my house has been very helpful when an ambulance is needed, and makes deliveries simple. It’s a good civic practice.

I’m with you, I hate it. We recently moved house to a house without an obvious number. We ordered one of those big slate number signs immediately but that first week while we were waiting for it to arrive was so irritating - constant phone calls from delivery drivers asking which number we were, visitors unable to find us, etc. I don’t know how the previous owners tolerated it for 30 years.

The weirdest thing was they had a novelty sign about their car on the outside of the house. Just no actual number.

Our neighbours either side haven’t got numbers, they rely on our our house number being visible.

Still not very helpful for delivery people, where it might not be obvious which side is 27 and which is 31.

It's slightly irritating if you have one small, light thing to drop off to one house, but for all of the delivery people - many of whom are under huge time pressures and very poorly paid - who have to do this with heavy parcels for hours on end, every day, for their livelihood, it's just horrible.

I totally agree. Our neighbours either side haven’t got numbers, they rely on our our house number being visible.
We have one of these under a light. It is large enough to read from the end of the drive.

Oh, that is so immensely irritating. To be honest, in the modern online delivery economy (as well as things like ambulances, of course), I think the government should make it the law for house numbers to be visible from the road by somebody slowly driving past.

Not that they will, of course, because very few (if any) people in the government have ever had to deliver parcels to make ends meet or done anything as useful as making house calls with the emergency/caring services. I bet they'd love it if all of the signs were taken off all of the doors of their own offices and those they visit, leaving them to just waste their time trying to guess where they need to go.

See also people who have too-small, stiff, snap-back letterboxes right at the bottom of their doors and noisy, aggressive dogs.

Oh god I agree. I live in a chocolate box type village (although I happen to live in the newer bit in a very ordinary house). The obsession people have with giving a house a name!!! I can’t tell you the amount of times I’ve had delivery drivers ask where Such and Such Cottage is. This is houses on a long road where lots of them do have numbers. Even the new builds that we’re only built last year and we’re allocated numbers - all but one of the new owners have called their house a cutesy name And took the number off. Why???!!!

I mean, I completely get it if it’s something obvious like “the Old Schoolhouse” or “the Old Police station” or even VillageName Hall / House (lord of the manor type house). But for a normal 3 bed that’s in a row of other normal 3 bed houses? Bizarre!!!

This drives me insane, I work in the community and I cannot tell you how many times I have to ring people because I can’t find their house due to lack of name or number.

Absolutely no point in house numbers or names if you aren’t going to bloody display them!

I beg you, if you are reading this and you don’t have a house name or number that can be seen clearly from the roadside, please do something about it if you can!

That’s one of my (many) pet hates too. I always wonder how they expect an ambulance to find them.

For heaven's sake it's so annoying. I managed two days as a hermes delivery driver and was ready to kill by the end of it. Even houses with numbers often have them so small you can't see it from the road, especially I'm the dark.