Would it be petty to refuse new neighbour’s request?

[isthispetty]

I live in a cul de sac - the houses are in a semi circle and my house is on the one of the ends.

A few years ago, our next door neighbours knocked down their detached house and replaced it with two semi-detached houses. They live in one of the houses and sold the other.

Consequently, they live in number 9, the other house is 9A and my house is number 10.

The people in 9A have recently moved, and we have some new next door neighbours.

This morning, the woman from 9A came round and asked if we would be willing to change our house number to 11, so they could be number 10. She says that loads of their post and deliveries keep getting sent to number 9, and she just thinks it would be easier.

Would it be unreasonable to say no? I’m used to living at ‘number 10’ - we’ve lived here for years! And I’d have to go through the effort of changing our address, and contacting everyone we know and getting it changed officially and legally.

Or should I just be neighbourly and agree?

Hahahahahahahaha. No.

She doesn't have a problem as such. It's just an irritation for her to get mail for the other house
You'd have the bother of changing everything to a new number. And I think maybe it costs money to change a house number.
I'd tell her no.

If their post is going to No 9 and not No 9a then they must have already done the donkey work in getting everything changed to their new address so therefore already know all the hassle of changing an address and it is hassle as I well know having moved 2 years ago. Plus the expense of having the mail redirected. Are they going to pay that expense?

One of our neighbours (new development) moved in and changed the house number to to 12a

Sorry should have read Changed it from 13 to 12a

Also a 'No' from me but I wouldn't add the 'it's too much paperwork' reason, I would simply say 'No' - if you give any actual 'reason' you're giving your neighbour a way to resolve your objection "I'll do all that, all you'd have to do is sign..."

Just say 'No' and leave it at that. And repeat as necessary.

She's barking.

Glad to see you're not doing it, OP. Don't let anyone change your mind!

Neighbour needs to speak to number 9 (who caused all this!) and get them to put up a sign on their letterbox indicating that 9A is next door. The house name idea would also work.

No, no, no. The emergency services don't need messing about like this, for one thing. As pp have said it's a really big undertaking to change your house number.

Number 13? In my trawl of websites I did pass a few that say you can get 'special dispensation' for those!

Some counties are not allocating 13 to any new builds...

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7779212.stm

Tell them to give their house a name? www.goodhousekeeping.co.uk/news/change-house-name-add-value-property

No. You'd be having to inform everyone of your new address and inevitably your post would go to the new number 10 etc. The postie should fairly quickly learn the occupant's names and deliver her post to the right house if he is anything like our one.

What if they applied for a loan using no 10 as address, then they defaulted?
It would the biggest pain in the ass ever to arrange - you'd have to pay loads to solicitors and banks and the government to get your mortgage and land registry and house deeds all sorted out. whats in it for you?. Nothing but work, expense and hassle. all to avoid someone's post going to the wrong house?

There's no way you should agree.

Pretty unanimous. Nope.

Don't do it.
We've just moved to a house that was not registered with Royal Mail (in same family for generations, never sold.) it's taken me months to get our address recognised.
The council were also a nightmare to deal with as they had to liaise with P.O.

Add in to the mix redirection on mail, we are still having issues 19 months later.
The Postman will be familiar with your set up. No real need to change anything.
If they don't want to be 9A then being 11 is fine. We lived in a cul de sac with numbers going in a peculiar sequence. Never a problem with mail. Postworkers are fabulous IME.
Ask her to affix a BIG 9A to her door.

No way. Even if it was as straight forward as putting new numbers on the wall, all that would happen is they'd get all your post.

Basically they're asking you to swap something that is causing them an inconvenience for something that will cause you a massive inconvenience instead.

I don't think they've thought it through as their own hassle is unlikely to be resolved by doing this in any case.

Tell her to give her house a name , we did this because we were 20a .

She can't have possibly researched it or why would she have still asked? You just wouldn't would you? Not only the cost but the gigantic pain the ass it would be too.

Can't they just give their house a name? My parents built their house and it has a name, no number.

Tell her no!
It's not just as simple as changing the number on your front door.
I lived in an A and didn't have any confusion with post. We also gave it a name but this wasn't on the post anyway.

We've got a number on our deeds that isn't recognised by Royal Mail.... so we are No 7 on our deeds and with land registry, but No 8 with Royal Mail. So we've adopted using No 8 in order to get our post. Which was fine, until we tried to take something out on finance and found out we had zero credit history. It's been horrendous and still isn't sorted. We have to use the land registry number for credit applications but the Royal mail number for post and parcels. It's utter madness and we've no idea how to sort it or how it even happened.

I don't think for one second it's just something you can do, OP and it's not something I'd for one second agree to doing. Glad you're not contemplating it.

I would say no and nothing else. Don't give her 'reasons' to argue against. The answer is no. No point in dragging it out.

Simplest, as others have posted, if the new neighbour becomes number 11.