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!

This is why the app what3 words should become totally mainstream.

I had a van driver the other day call me because we are in the sticks and we have a house name (but I had included my mobile number in my address). I was able to tell him what three words are the 9m square piece of land my gateway is in and he was her in three.

It's a genous godsend!

Even better than that we have a down lighter over our house number sign beside the front door, and it says the house number and the street name! We’re on a 5 year old small development of largish detached houses 🏠 so I’m hoping ‘10 Drovers Drive’ will help them as I’ve noticed quite a few don’t have visible numbers and a couple have even named their houses instead 🙄

@Purplewithred - you are so right with using the WhatThreeWords app. It's so handy. Maybe if that were put into the "Delivery Instructions" field instead of a contact number, as there is usually a "Contact Number" field, that would help too?
(going back to read from post 101 onwards now) :-)

@Yesitsbess are you restricted to google maps? Friend on a new build, google maps still has them as a field and tries to direct you a mile away, but Apple maps is more up to date and the address takes you correctly to their door. They give out their directions stating “use Apple maps if you have an iPhone”. If not they provide a picture map 😂

@Justcashnosweets

I don't have a house number on my home, however, given that there are only 3 houses on my very short road, and both my neighbours have numbers on their doors, its not hard to work out.

Why would you not? Surely in a emergency it does slow people down as they have to go back and forth looking at other doors first, when seconds count you want the ambulance or police there that second?

@LookItsMeAgain What a good idea - I'm going to put our whats3word address onto everything for delivery from now on

Would what three words help? Is that an app you use?

I'm very conscious of this and although we don't have an outside light we have a large clear house number on a white background. We put this up last year so hopefully it helps.

I live in a small block of flats (12 flats, 2 storeys) on a council estate but the road next to me is terraced houses. Theer is no name for the block as it is one of the smaller buildings on the estate (so doesn't get its own name for some reason). As a result my address is just number +street name. I cannot tell you how many times delivery drivers go up the next row of terraced houses that is clearly a different street name, looking for an actual 'house' rather than a 'flat'. I'm on the second storey so cant attach anything that would be visible, plus I'm definitely not allowed to add big numbers or signs to the outside of Council property. Genuinely asking- from your experience, is there anything I can do as I'm sick of walking up and down the street on the phone to a delivery driver waving like a lunatic because they're looking for a house not a block of flats?
(oh and Ive tried saying its a block and to ring the buzzer in the delivery info- never works)

Sorry forgot to post before school run!

@SchadenfreudePersonified your words are monkey monkey dishwasher

Oh, Christ!

I bloody HATE bloody monkeys . . .

Thanks anyway, YesitsBess

Here - am I "outed"?

I FORBID THE DAILY EFFING MAIL TO CHECK WHERE I LIVE!

I was once picking up a dog from foster just outside Paris and taking him to Bordeaux. I'd driven up to Paris for this dog (I run an animal rescue). The street went like this 145, 784, 12, 45, 17, 567. It was as if everyone was allowed to pick their own number. When I arrived, I was in a sweaty, teary mess. The foster man didn't understand why I was so upset. Then the dog shat on the back seat. It put an end to my do-gooding ways.

I also used to have to go and see clients in Paris. There was a woman who arranged all the schedules in the office. She'd tell you the time and the metro stop. But she'd always get it wrong. And on so many occasions, I'd have a meeting and be on the right road, but three miles away. She'd get the right street name but not realise that those Parisian avenues can go on for miles. This was before mobile phones. My heart is pounding in my chest remembering those days.

@LilMidge01

I live in a small block of flats (12 flats, 2 storeys) on a council estate but the road next to me is terraced houses. Theer is no name for the block as it is one of the smaller buildings on the estate (so doesn't get its own name for some reason). As a result my address is just number +street name. I cannot tell you how many times delivery drivers go up the next row of terraced houses that is clearly a different street name, looking for an actual 'house' rather than a 'flat'. I'm on the second storey so cant attach anything that would be visible, plus I'm definitely not allowed to add big numbers or signs to the outside of Council property. Genuinely asking- from your experience, is there anything I can do as I'm sick of walking up and down the street on the phone to a delivery driver waving like a lunatic because they're looking for a house not a block of flats? (oh and Ive tried saying its a block and to ring the buzzer in the delivery info- never works)

What 3 words!

The answer to everything on this thread is going to be what 3 words!

I don’t have a job that involves deliveries, but it annoys me when people don’t have large enough house numbers, or worse none at all. We bought a 40cm tall one in stainless steel from eBay as we have a long driveway. It wasn’t expensive, but it is really very clear and at night it is lit up by an outdoor light.

YANBU. I delivered for Amazon for a while and it was ridiculous the number of people who didn't put a number up. Do people actually want the stuff they've ordered?!

See also: people who live in gated communities with gates that don't have a Trades button, then don't answer the phone. Shall I annoy your neighbours or just lob your parcel over the wall?

Also on the God level: people who have Hippo boxes for parcel deliveries while they're out.

Also on the Hell level:

• People living in villages full of named houses who don't put the name up anywhere.
• People ordering 20 crates of bottled water to their flat, in a block where the lift is broken, who stand at their door watching me run up and down the numerous flights of stairs 20 times
• The town planners in Stevenage. Yes, let's put all the houses facing eachother with the garages at the back of the houses, all facing the road. Not at all terrifying for women on their own delivering parcels in the dark. Marvelous.
• People with tiny letterboxes that snap back on my hand, leaving me bleeding all over their doorstep.

I've just gone and ordered my wheelie bin sticky numbers. I will also be looking for a new wall sign, because despite having the number in two places, it's not easy to see, especially in the dark.
Although I did enjoy the moment when a delivery driver complained that I didn't have a house number showing, and I pointed to the number that was about a foot away from his nose. Then indicated the other number on the garage door, that he had walked past. He did look a bit sheepish.

We have recently moved into a flat and didn't realise until we moved that we are almost certainly in your Delivery Circle of Hell... The flats are an old mill conversion attached to a massive new build development. The flats are all "odd numbers, Green Road", the massive new build is also mostly "Green Road" but with a mix of odd and even numbers. There are multiple little cul-de-sacs off Green Road, Green Way, Green Lane etc, all with the same numbers. Ours is the last numbered flat on the top floor (2nd floor, no lift) and the next number is actually a house round the corner! So we have deliveries for the house just dumped on our doorstep as the driver finds us first, trudges up the stairs, walks along to the end, sees our number, realises there is no next door and just gives up!

I do leave quite detailed instructions on how to find us for our deliveries but it's clear many drivers don't read them! They have to buzz to get in, but often the door is ajar so they just come in. They also quite often look at the stairs and just dump the parcel at the bottom and mark it "handed to resident" which annoys me as I don't always see the notification straight away and our area isn't the best. Also, as it happens I'm able bodied but they don't know that! I do always apologise to the drivers that do deliver properly and will often run down the stairs to try and meet them to save them a bit of a journey.

We have building work on the path and around the front door so its almost impossible to deliver anything at the moment. It's not really something I can do anything about while the work is happening. When its finished the front door will be more clearly visible with better lighting though.

why is it that there are less and less street names displayed these days?

I live on a street which is a dead end. There are houses on one side of the street only, all clearly numbered 1-40 in numerical order. We still get deliveries for a random neighbour regularly.

All these people telling me about your lighty up giant numbers and wheely bin stickers are warming my cockles immensely, my cockles are well happy.

I'm not working tonight, but am going to give what3words a bash when I'm next on and get back to you, I am also going to inform all the other drivers and get them to research the efficacy with me, we shall gather all the data. Does it work for flats though? Or is it just a floor grid?

@SchadenfreudePersonified Fine, I rescind my monkeys. You can have flamingos instead. MINGOS!

@BlowDryRat I FEEL YOU ON ALL OF THAT! Except the Stevenage bit.

waves fist menacingly at Stevenage town planners though

@TroublesomeTrucks we don't mind if your path is currently a portal to another dimension, but do let us know on the delivery instructions if you can, especially if it's dark! My favourite delivery recently was a lovely man who knew it would be pitch black when I arrived so not only warned me in the notes section that his garden was, in fact, a large hole, but made me a little lighted up walkway across the Hell portal! Loved him for it.

@PricklesAndSpikes that does sound like no fun at all. For anyone!

I fall into Tier 2 😇 our street numbers are in order but ourselves and next door are off the road, so I always write “down tarmac drive behind number 35”

We also have number at the top of the drive and the house number and street name actually on the house.

I feel for you OP, but I also can’t understand households that don’t care whether they get their Mail or not!

I hear you OP. I'm working in a community healthcare job at the minute and can't believe how difficult to find some peoples addresses are.

My least favourite are flats above retail on a main road. Nowhere to park, have to get out and walk and sometimes I've genuinely walked up and down the same stretch of road going out of my mind

Rural/dogs in the garden also not cool. I've done a few late night on calls, trying to find an address in the pitch black and pouring rain really is amongst my least favourite aspects of the job.

@SchadenfreudePersonified Fine, I rescind my monkeys. You can have flamingos instead. MINGOS!

MINGOs are very acceptable. Thank you.

I shall put some strips on the bird table for them.