A plea from a new postie

[Zingy123]

If you haven't got your door number displayed please get some stick on numbers or a sign. I have recently started working for Royal Mail. I can't believe the amount of doors without numbers on. It's so hard trying to deliver to the right doors a lot of it is guess work.

Other services must struggle too like Ambulances etc.

Thank you

I had never considered this to be an issue until I read a thread on here in the early stages of the pandemic .
It was started by someone who had to change jobs and was new to delivering .It was such a light hearted treatment of a real problem ,a lovely thread .
I am on a well lit straight road in London and never thought my address would be difficult to find ,but when I looked I could see how totally inadequate the house numbers were not only on my door but many of my neighbours .
I sent off for some dayglo wheelie bin stickers and put them at eyelevel on a bike shed on our forecourt .Because even if only one house out of 20 has a number displayed clearly that's a big help .

@Mysa74

Yes it's a free app you can download. Emergency services recommend it it too. The whole world is split into 3m squares and they all have 3 word "addresses". You can use the app to get the 3 words for a place to give to someone or you can use the app to navigate between 2 locations. It has a map or compass option for that. I first used it so my brother could find us in Epping forest rather than saying turn left at the big tree, then right at the holly bush. He found us in dense trees in no time

Beware what 3 words in an emergency situation:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-57156797

cybergibbons.com/security-2/why-what3words-is-not-suitable-for-safety-critical-applications/

@Babdoc

I have twice had a district nurse in ppe gear burst into my house on a Sunday - once when I was sitting in my dressing gown and once I was in the bath! She hadn’t bothered checking that the address she wanted was M… Place, so marched into my unlocked house when I didn’t hear the door - because I am on M…Drive, and she reached that first. M… Place is five turnings away down the street! The street is clearly named, and my house numbered. The postie never has a problem.

Why don't you keep your door locked? I can't imagine being in the bath with an unlocked front door!

I live in a terrace where front doors can only be accessed by a footpath, and back doors can be accessed by a narrow lane, so the postie comes to the front of the house, and about 80% of deliveries to the back [the remaining 20% are from firms who do one-off deliveries and aren't familiar with the area, and get really cross when they discover they've been trekking down a footpath when there's a perfectly good lane on the other side]. Oh, and there are no street lights. Like most people, I therefore have door numbers on both sides of my house - although this thread has reminded me to get a bigger one for the front, as it probably isn't visible in the dark.

@GeneLovesJezebel

There are people who don’t want to be found

With DH’s last job we couldn’t have the house up. These days there’s an app that’s particularly useful for named rather than numbered houses, and delivery drivers can use it to pinpoint you.

Argh, yes! I used to deliver parcels and the number of houses with:

• no numbers
• dangerous paths to get to the front door (bit of MDF over a trench, anyone?
• tiny letterboxes
• no letterboxes
• huge gates with no way to deliver if they were out

And also the number of people who sat in their living room watching the TV not bothering to answer the door for their parcel

My favourite house had numbers and an enormous parcel box outside their gates.

[quote unidentia]I tried to get a number for my house from the council but was told I couldn't - the ay the street is numbered I'd need to be minus 3 main st. - so I stick with the name (2 x large lit house name signs by the way)

In Ireland they've put a new postcode system in where every property has a unique id which seems sensible
www.eircode.ie/[/quote]
I think eircode's are amazing!! I live in the middle of nowhere address is just a townland with no distinction between my house and all the other houses in maybe a 1 mile radius. The postwoman always found us (prob from years of knowing) but couriers were divils for saying "couldn't find you so I dropped it at the garage in town" without even trying to contact me.

You'd be surprised, ppl here still complained that it was a waste of money. Most ppl in urban areas don't use them, rural areas do. As pp's have said it is great for ambulances etc.

Sorry the house name up (on a sign). Link from tired brain to fat fingers not in use!

I work in a role where I need to find houses in a hurry! At a minimum a house name/ number, bonus points for it being at the bottom of the path/ driveway, and top tier is having it lit by solar/ wired lighting. Always helps to put the porch light on if expecting a call too!
It could genuinely be a matter of life and death.

Our front door has an outline of our house number which was virtually invisible, unless you looked at a certain angle. I've coloured it in using a black sharpie and it's much better and appears to be seen better by the delivery people.
When we get to choose our new front door it will have a much better number on it with a light.

Sorry, that's me. But I'm smack bang in the middle of what is clearly 121 and 125 so it's not that hard to work out. Surely what's worse is people who remove house numbers and replace them with names. So many times I've had to try and find named houses for work and just given up.

Has always been an issue.
A number is not difficult.

I have a big number on my gate, tall gate, number at eye level, you literally stare at the number to open my gate - I either get:

a) “I couldn’t find your house as you haven’t got a door number sign” … I point to it, “oh I didn’t see it”
b) post for my number but a different street name! Has happened on many occasions.

Posties need to do their job well too

Agree about low letterboxes - PITA, should not be allowed.

Not a postie but I agree.

It is really irritating when people say "I'm at number 8" then you get there and there is no number 8 on the door. Our wee corner of the street all have numbers on the houses, because the one next to us is number 6, but it is the last one you get to, the one on the other side is number 10, and numbers 2 and 4 are across the road from it. I haven't yet worked out where numbers 1 and 3 are. There is also a house down the road that has the same number as us, and the street sign for our road is right outside it, but it, in fact, is on another road. They were always getting our mail, until they put up a house number sign that also has their street name on it.

There isn't even any excuse for not having a number. We didn't get round to getting a proper door number for a couple of years. But the developer had blu tacked the number and street name to one of the front windows. It is so easy to do.

Quite agree op

Beware what 3 words in an emergency situation:

Neither of those pieces actually say much. The BBC one speaks about human error (which can also happen without W3W) and the second is an opinion piece.

No system is perfect but in most scenarios W3W is really useful.

We ended up registering our house on Google maps. The entrance is accurately pinpointed and people still drive past...

@Triotriotrio

The number of times I've gone out to a cardiac arrest and it is impossible to find the house. It's like people want to not be found!!

This is scary. I am going to get a light for our sign. Our house isn't visible from the road

I have my house number in stick on numbers 30cm high in the glass above my door. People still didn’t see it so I’ve now added a number tile onto my house.

Community nurse here, it's nightmare - at night it's worse as you can't see numbers.

Google maps is good - as on it shows a picture of the house. Be warned with wheelie bins, they aren't also put back in the same place.

In our town, some houses were destroyed in WW2 so they are also missing numbers in roads, so it can go 2,4,6,10,18 etc.

It's heaven when you a see a house with big illumnated numbers.

In one section of my road it goes 2,4,6, 8a, 8, 8b, 8c, 9a, 9.... no wonder everyone's post is messed up

[quote Zingy123]@Hathertonhariden they were supposed to be banned
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-47457758#:~:text=In%20a%20victory%20for%20long,dog%20bites%20and%20trapped%20fingers[/quote]
Was that widely publicised? Don't remember seeing that.

@Hathertonhariden there were quite a few articles when I searched it.

You sound like a great Postie, mine when they’re here are wonderful and funny when we chat but the others who cover our walk are hopeless

I have a road name and number sign at head height, with a light over it. All 4 of my bins have A4 sized name/number signs on them because I am a number 2 on a corner next to a number 2

Yet for the last 15 years I have repeatedly received the following number 2’s post because they just don’t look at the road name

This might not be a problem for some but I’m disabled, funnily enough it’s why I have a post box, not to be awkward but so I don’t have to bend down (it’s got a decent slot and takes big envelopes because I care about my posties)

Yet still I get next doors post

So as a disabled householder who really has tried, please learn your walk well because I’m not always well enough to sort out mistakes

Ha I used to have a papering as a teen can confirm this is a huge issue.

As is ordering the Sunday Times and having a letterbox the size of a cassette tape.

Take paper apart- complaint logged
Leave paper outside- another complaint
Use cat flap- complain again.

Get a mail box then dickhead

Also have the opposite problem. Postes amd couriers don't bother reading the full name of the road. So there's a acorn close, acorn Road, acorn Lane.

We just get anything with acorn In it then I have to do your job for u