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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To ask you to put your house number where I can see it?

107 replies

Duvetdweller · 08/12/2020 19:00

I'm helping out a friend who is doing deliveries from his restaurant to try and keep afloat. It's dark and it's raining - google maps can only take me so far. Would it kill you to put a number on your house? Or even on your gate so I can see it from the road? Also, if you live at 100 Main Road, please don't just put your house name because it sounds posh, your dinner will be very cold.

OP posts:
midnightstar66 · 08/12/2020 20:08

Deliveroo puts my house on a completely different street. I send dc out to wave deliveries. You cannot rely on sat nav at all

WitsEnding · 08/12/2020 20:10

In the 1980s I used to live in a house with a name but no number, house was converted into 20 plus flats and had probably been a nursing home in a former life.

Royal Mail insisted we put a number on the door in order for them to continue deliveries - is this not a thing any more?

ReadySteadyBed · 08/12/2020 20:34

We have a number and keep the outside light on when we have takeaway or grocery delivery coming at night but I should just put ‘the house with the BIG fucking tree outside it’ too 😂

BashfulClam · 08/12/2020 20:34

I have one of those cinema light boxes and when we moved in and were waiting for our door plaque I had that in the front window saying ‘123 Any Street’ a delivery guy thought it was great.

DigOutThoseLemonHandWipes · 08/12/2020 20:39

If you only have a house name, don’t ask us to visit. It is not my choice to not have a number - fortunately as this applies to roughly half of our small town the midwife/GP/paramedics/
fire brigade etc around here don't decide who is worthy of visiting depending on whether they live on the "old" or "new" side of town and treat us all equally.

Chouetted · 08/12/2020 20:54

I have a difficult to find house (but the number IS on the door), and took to asking delivery drivers who got "lost" for advice on how the directions I left in the delivery instructions could be improved.

Noone had any suggestions. Most of them hadn't actually read them until I asked.

I wasn't really sure how to move forward from there. Luckilly it only happens once per delivery driver Grin

combatbarbie · 08/12/2020 20:56

Use sat nav, this strange wizardry will take you straight to the door if you enter postcode & street number

If you do that with my address you end up at the bowling green 500m down the road!

crazycadetmum · 08/12/2020 21:03

As a community nurse I can say please do have clear house numbers and while google can help it doesn’t always get you to right place nor does my sat nav...if your expecting a visit or delivery...leave your light on and make sure your number or house name is not hidden by the bushes or bins.

TwoZeroTwoZero · 08/12/2020 21:08

The numbers on our street flummox everybody! They go up one side and then down the other rather than the usual pattern of odds and evens on opposite sides. I always put directions for delivery drivers, e.g. look for the red fiesta near the top of the street.

My sat nav often takes me to the wrong street and google maps is no better: once it tried to take me down a footpath and another time it directed me to cross a railway line :/

Original poster
Duvetdweller · 08/12/2020 21:13

@BashfulClam when I become prime minister the first thing I’m going to do is make it MANDATORY to implement your invention.

It was just a moan really but I didn’t consider the implications for ambulances etc. I assumed people would be outside waiting!

OP posts:
DobbyTheHouseElk · 08/12/2020 21:17

My neighbour has a digit missing. So instead of 25, she’s now 5. We are 26 so unfortunately it causes confusion. I’ve offered to paint or glue on a 2, but no, she’s going to do it tomorrow....5 years later...we watch the vans drive up and drive away.

Leonberger · 08/12/2020 21:29

My house has a name and I hate it.

All of the street (mile long) are named though so switching to a number would be equally pointless.

PinkSparklyPussyCat · 08/12/2020 21:33

We have a number but a lot of delivery drivers don't seem to be able to read. It's not on the gate as we have a shared pathway but the number is clear next to our door so why do the idiots then deliver to our bloody neighbour?!

SkedaddIe · 08/12/2020 21:34

I live in a new build and my road still isn't on google maps yet but it's on some of the others apple, waze etc.

we also figured out our exact gps coordinates are ie 51.12345N 0.12345E so we give that to friends and put it on the delivery notes in addition to what car is on the drive and what our house looks like.

WednesdayAllTheWay · 08/12/2020 21:34

Mea culpa, and I feel guilty about it...repainted the house and didn't immediately get a new number to match the new colour. That was 3 years agoBlush ...but now we're moving. I don't feel quite so bad as they are terraced houses and our neighbour's number is only inches away from our wall.

Ariela · 08/12/2020 21:38

Our friend's house instructions include 'when you start to think there is nothing down the road and are considering turning round, KEEP GOING as you're very nearly there, and suddenly you'll see our house on the right, you can't miss it'

lynsey91 · 08/12/2020 21:53

DH is a plumber and gets call outs. He moans all the time how difficult it is to find house numbers.

I have been with him some times and it is ridiculous trying to see a number. I can't believe how many houses have no number or name or, even if they do, it is so small you can't read it from the street.

It's bad enough during the day. Once it is dark it is far far worse.

I really don't know how emergency doctors, ambulances, fire engines etc find the address they are looking for unless, in the case of fire engines, there are flames coming out of the house

Magpiecomplex · 08/12/2020 22:07

Our road only has houses on one side, so they're numbered sequentially - 15 is in between 14 and 16. Large numbers of delivery vans go sailing past, and then come back round when they realise.

We have our number on the front of the house but the door is on the side (next to the bins with the number on too) but that doesn't stop people apparently being unable to see either number. I've taken to turning the light on after dark too, if we're expecting a delivery.

40somethingJBJ · 08/12/2020 22:14

I have a number on my door, a number on the wall next to the door, and a large sticker on each wheelie bin which are on the drive. My neighbours also have well visible numbers.

Somehow, couriers still seem to miss these and regularly lob parcels over random gates!

Judashascomeintosomemoney · 08/12/2020 22:50

Would it kill you to put a number on your house? Or even on your gate so I can see it from the road?
I do. It’s on my gates. It’s a foot high. It’s also lit.
And yet, and yet. Despite it being a foot high and lit and on my gates, you constantly try to deliver your stinking greasy takeaway food to me at no XX (who orders a takeaway approx once every six months) instead of my neighbour at no XX A (who apparently a orders a takeaway every other flipping night)
Also, if you live at 100 Main Road, please don't just put your house name because it sounds posh
Despite the fact you’re delivering to the wrong house, my house has a name because it was here approximately 120 years before the vast majority of the other houses around here. I have a number too now to try to avoid this but apparently that’s not enough 🤷‍♀️
Can I add one? Don’t ring my bell and then fuck off, leaving your stinking greasy takeaway on my doorstep (because, COVID 🤷‍♀️), despite it not being for me because you couldn’t be arsed to find out who it was really for. Because next time you do, I’ll leave it there and not bother ringing around local takeaways to see whose it is and where it should have gone and then delivering it myself (like I have three times since the first lockdown - all different takeaway foods so not even the same takeaway!!!!!!)

Changi · 08/12/2020 23:13

My house has its name and number clearly shown but the numbers in the lane seem have been allocated at random and don't follow the normal pattern. It's clearly too much for some drivers who just leave parcels on the nearest doorstep, then send me a picture and let me work out where.

minniemoll · 08/12/2020 23:15

For those having problems with roads missing from Google maps, you can contact them and ask for changes to be made - I did when I moved here, our tiny street was on Apple maps but not Google, but they added it really quickly.

bloodywhitecat · 08/12/2020 23:20

@Roselilly36

Use sat nav, this strange wizardry will take you straight to the door if you enter postcode & street number.
Ha! If only. The number of people we have had to talk them through the exact position of our house as some satnavs dump them on a farmer's hardstanding where all that can be seen are fields and a pile of lime (or beet depending on the time of year).

I'd love to put a number up OP but we don't have one. We do have the house name on the gate and even have a solar light to try and illuminate it a bit in the dark but was we live slightly off the road our address falls under we can be tricky to find (which is why we always give at least a landline and a mobile phone number).

AlwaysLatte · 08/12/2020 23:37

Use sat nav, this strange wizardry will take you straight to the door if you enter postcode & street number.
Not here it doesn't. It takes people to a different road but there isn't any access from that one to our house, which is off the beaten track (and doesn't have a number). Takeaways just don't happen here!

BlackeyedSusan · 08/12/2020 23:41

@Moonflower12
we were always taught to "windmill" such a great word. Or basically send someone out to look for the ambulance while someone stays with the patient. Done my fair share of windmilling too.