To ask you...no, to BEG you...

[Yesitsbess]

Put your house numbers on your house people!

I lost my hospitality job during the lockdown and, as many people have had to, took up a delivery job to make ends meet. I have learned that delivery drivers are grumpy for a reason! Those reasons are numerous.

If you want to help us out for reasons that include: our safety, our being able to park safely, our being able to make the insane time targets we are set by our companies, our not wasting fuel looking for you (both environmentally and efficiency-wise) and you just getting your food/parcels/taxis on-time then please have a look at the following:

1. God tier - people with GIANT NUMBERS IN LIGHTS on their houses AND BINS ( we love you, especially if we deliver after dark) even if we're not delivering to your house, we use you as navigation because Googlemaps is shite.

1. Mid-tier - people who live somewhere hard-to-find but include directions on their order. Your street has 'odds and evens'. You have your number on your door in a colour that is discernible in the dark.

1. Poo-tier - people who live on a New build estate where the developer assigned house numbers by THROWING A CALCULATOR AT A CEILING FAN, and yet they think Google maps will see us right. It will not and we hate you.

1. Hell Tier - people who live on a main road, with long drives spanning off said main road, with NO indication of what house number/name they are at he end of their drive...

1. Seventh circle of Hell tier - you live very rurally and don't provide directions. Or in a very difficult to access place, or you have insane building works on the path, your dog is horrible (please stop your dogs humping and/or biting us - we're on minimum wage, we don't care if he "never does this usually!")

Anyway, if you've read this and think "We're golden!" on this issue, drive around your neighbouring roads at night and try to pick a random number to find - it's a fun game and might help you see what we see?

PUT NUMBERS ON YOUR HOUSES PEOPLE!

Oh I was about to say YABU but then I remembered the third circle of hell - walks - any place named walk - fuck me I got lost on the estate I used to work on so many times - looking for 298 fuck me walk? - well park three miles away and - oh look there is 200 fuck me walk ...296, 297 - this must be 298 - NO it's actually number 56 Fuck me again walk - arggh

We have numbers on our doors in small close of new build houses. But, since last year and lockdown, I've noticed my neighbours have added bigger numbers on the first bit of building a delivery driver would see, such as the edge of an integrated garage. We are going to do the same.

I live rurally, no house number. SatNav dumps you in a field about a mile away. My house is very VERY obvious due to location, and if Im expecting a delivery after dark I put the outside light on.

Lots of delivery drivers find us first time because they read the “delivery instructions” bit.

Others... not so much.

I swear I will get a better door number, with my street name on too, as my address is admittedly a pain in the arse. Although I have become quite good at legging it up the road to flag errant deliveroo drivers

I had a takeaway delivery driver thank me for having my outside light on in the past when he delivered one night. Ever since then I make a post of turning it on if I'm expecting a delivery, it's such a small thing that can make a difference.

Ghosty - I feel you, we have a street here that goes, and I shit you not, 24, 25, 26, THIRTY SEVEN, 27, 28, 29.

Nightsky, we really do appreciate it, newbuilds take forever to show up on maps, we all try to help each other with new estates so we can keep ADT down, but the big numbers really help us - see above! :)

Just as an aside, if a delivery driver can't find you, how will the emergency services do any better?

@Yesitsbess

Ghosty - I feel you, we have a street here that goes, and I shit you not, 24, 25, 26, THIRTY SEVEN, 27, 28, 29.

Nightsky, we really do appreciate it, newbuilds take forever to show up on maps, we all try to help each other with new estates so we can keep ADT down, but the big numbers really help us - see above! :)

yup - estates are evil - I swear they suck you into a parallel universe

Sorry OP, yanbu. I have worked as a courier.

OMG absolutely. I used to do community midwife visits and my patch included part of the south circular. Number 795 A406..... which is of course incredibly hard to turn around on once your destination sails past you.....

Mind you, better than the home birth on an island in the Thames. Address, blue houseboat. It was the middle of the night and there was no moon.....

I do apologise I live in a rural area with a name not number like all my neighbours. I do put directions when asked but never know what to it that makes sense in a limited number of characters. The house name is visible in 3 places from the road

I also used to have the job of naming and numbering new build roads - I hated walks (with no road access but 20 houses hidden round a blind corner) with a deep and abiding hatred.

Would it help if I put the "what3words" name somewhere? Not sure if that a thing delivery drivers use or not???

I cannot tell you how much we appreciate lights left on and instructions (especially if you're rural). I work with kids who are my daughter's age, and I often worry about them, we deliver to very rural locations at night.

I never really thought about how scary the whole thing was until I was knocking on a door at eleven at night in the middle of nowhere with no lighting and no signal.

Got my house number in huge white stickers on my bin, and then the number is also on my door. Delivery drivers must love me, yay!😂

We have a big (and tasteful) number, I often see drivers stop at ours and use it as navigation. You're welcome 😇

I would but there aren't any on our street so I have no idea what we should be. Pretty sure I'd confuse people more if I just made a random one up! We do have the name very clearly displayed though.

Yep. I normally visit clients in their own homes. In winter, that’s often after dark.

It’s v stressful trying to find non numbered houses in rural areas.

We don’t have a number either, just a name, but always say we’re next door to the pub.

I have numbered everything and everywhere I can. We have a big front to our house and then a driveway which isn’t close to the front door. And a sensor light. I hope those things help.

In return, could delivery people please not walk on our front garden and take the extra 3 seconds to use the path?

Much appreciated!

Totally agree with you.
I do home visits for my work and often go curb crawling looking for numbers. The worst ones are houses in rural villages with just names, no number, it's an absolute nightmare to find the right one, usually end up having to ask for directions.

YANBU at all, OP

I 100% hear you.
It's not just parcel couriers either.
It's amazing how many people don't have numbers visible from the road or even anywhere on their house

I have a very large house number. It doesn't stop delivery drivers assuming we are the next off number from next door. We're not, we're at a corner so a different road. So rather than being house number 8 or 10, we're 57.

Ambulance volunteer here - in the olden days my main role was often to find the house in the street-of-irrational-numbers or to pick out BigBalls Lodge among BigBalls Drive, BigBalls House West, BigBalls Court, BigBalls Mews and BigBalls. Thankfully the ambulance mapping now takes us to the door (mostly) but it still really helps to have a big clear visible sign somewhere.

I do wish delivery companies would start asking for What3Words locations though. Great app, also invaluable for emergencies in the middle of nowhere.

I used to live in a cul de sac where the numbers were
1 3 5 6 4 2
We were forever swapping post.
Even with numbers visible

Delivery drivers do pretty well here. But I am wondering if the new postie might be dyslexic?

We are under covenants here, cannot change any external features without permission including door numbers (they are brass) no gate just gap in the hedge. Never had an issue as we are on the main road but some of our street is actually (4 different) mews off the road plus others off the car parks, I've had delivery drivers apologise for missing the slot because they got lost on the previous customer. Don't get why the mews' didn't get different street names.