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!

@Backinthebox poor commoners, get some kind of laser light show to guide us in, that'll learn him.

Once I had no instructions other than "PLEASE CALL WHEN YOU GET TO X PLACE"

I did call and even then I couldn't believe the instructions, I had to drive down a towpath beside a river in complete darkness towards what I was assured was a house (I was just picturing the phone call to the AA to pull me out of the river it was that narrow) and at the end, after making the delivery (in the snow and dark) I had to go out in reverse, so no lights whatsoever around a bend.

I nearly pood my pants.

I feel you, OP. My dad was a rent collector for the local council back in the 90's and one weekend a year we (parents and brother) used to all go around and deliver the new rent cards for the upcoming year for his 'area' (mostly group dwellings and warden areas etc) before it all went online etc as most of his clients were old ladies and gentlemen who adored him so it took forever as he'd always stay and have a good chat as he knew he'd be the only person they'd likely see that day/week.

The amount of oddly numbered places is horrific.

Our problem now is that we're shielders always put delivery instructions of ' SHIELDERS: PLEASE PLACE INSIDE PORCH. THANK YOU!' and leave the porch light and our outside light on for the delivery driver during the winter. Our address is in HUGE letters on the front door and also on our bins.

On our front door, there is also a sign with a huge 'STOP' sign (like a road one) that politely and briefly explains we are shielders. It's replaced regularly incase of fading from the sun so is always readable.

The postman and Hermes courier both know to do it. On Amazon, it is also written in delivery instructions to leave inside the porch. Where we get DPD emails we put our safe place as the porch. On Just Eat we always ask 'please place inside open porch'. If possible for other deliveries it is written in the delivery instructions.

Despite all this, not counting the postman/Hermes courier it is only roughly 3 out of 10 people who read the delivery notes/note on the door to place things inside the porch.

Weirdly enough there are a lot who want to put things in my hand (and seem to touch my hand in an OTT manner which I realise sounds weird but I can't explain it in another way. It's not a brush of the fingers - it's a try to hold the back of my hand with one of their hands and put the parcel inside my hand to create maximum touching) rather than on the floor in front of me too! It's all very very strange.

We have a solar powered lit house number and a motion light. Do we win?
So many delivery drivers have said what we have should be law!

I wonder if there's a bin number salesperson somewhere who is just going "What the fuck is going on today?"

@RobBeckettsTeeth those are my favourites. You do win! Besspoints all-round!

@BackforGood I have had to have an ambulance out twice in the last few months and both times they've told us to do this, have someone in the street looking to help ambulance crew find us.

yeah op hes jeff bezos ;)

@Yesitsbess

I wonder if there's a bin number salesperson somewhere who is just going "What the fuck is going on today?"

They'll be too busy ordering their new Maserati with all their commission to wonder about it just yet.

In a fortnight, in the Bahamas, as they step out of their private plane onto the runway , it will cross their mind to speculate.

@SchadenfreudePersonified I'm Muttley laughing now.

Totally YANBU but thank you so much for the laugh - your description of the tiers especially the ‘fan’ bit was hilarious

@7catsandcounting I had missed your post. I feel you, have done dog rescue drives with a nervous (poopy) dog before!

I have my house number and the road name under my house light 😇 it's not massive
, but it's white on a black .. is that good enough? I live on a dreaded new build estate and our road is basically half the estate weaving all ways, it's crazy. It's really tricky.

Our street numbers are a bit confusing, down the right hand side it starts from 2 and every even number up until 40. On the left hand side the numbers start from 41 and then every odd number up to 75.
So number 40 and 75 are next to each other as it's a cul de sac.
We always get people looking confused when trying to find which house they are after.
Unfortunately our drive is on a slight incline so hides our number when the cars are on the drive. I do keep meaning to get something to put our house number on top of our garage door so it's more visible, this thread has prompted me to do that!

God tier. Here. 3 bins all with numbers as fart as my arse. I do notice delivery drivers clocking my bins and knowing where to go (not me usually 🤣)

Our street starts at 22 and the first few houses only have footpath access.

I once went to a cardiac arrest where the flat was in the middle of a long road which was split in two just before the flat we needed with a high fence at the divide, too recent to be on sat nav. Of course we went up what appeared to be the shortest route and had to turn the truck round and go the long way round. It added five minutes at least onto the journey. I do wonder if the chap would have survived if the divide hadn’t been there.

@ohhmydododah that sounds good to me

@MissCalamity Balloons. Balloons with house numbers on them, that's what you need. Informative and festive.

@EveningOverRooftops we love you AND your arse bins. (not something I imagined saying today)

@Recycledblonde

I’m moving to a rural area this week. House has a name but no number. It’s listed so I can’t put the name or a light on the outside There are strict rules about putting the bins out.

I’m going to die there alone, choking on a cold takeaway because the ambulance can’t find my house, aren’t I?

@Chocolatier9 Yes.

What are the rules on smiley cones or those inflatable light up dinosaurs (doesn't have to be a dinosaur, that would just be my preference, I remember a parking thread that had an inflatable Olaf once.)

OR someone linked to reflective (yet tasteful) house signs on about page 9 I think, I had a look and they're gorgeous and traditional and only reflect rather than light up.

I have very large numbers on the house, which is right next to the road. Delivery drivers still can't find us. Luckily our usual Hermes man and Yodel lady know us well by now as I think us and NDN are about 90% of their deliveries.

I feel your pain OP, I feel your pain. I spent the last 10 years of my working life making house calls and I spent those 10 years telling anyone who would listen that it should be illegal, and carry a mandatory term of life imprisonment for anyone who did not put the number on their house. We did not have satnav, just an A-Z and I ended up buying myself a huge magnifying glass just to be able to see some of the streets on the map. Those who have posted about the numbering of council flats are so right, I was once wandering about trying to find flat number whatever and was collared by a policewoman because she thought I was acting suspiciously - turned out she thought I was involved in distraction burglary. And industrial premises are no better. There is usually a site map at the entrance but there are always double yellow lines and the map is always on top of a steep grassy mound so unless you have x-ray vision you can't read it anyway. And the units themselves are all over the flipping place.

Hermes man and Yodel lady sounds like an upcoming blockbuster superhero film. LOVE IT!

I think that the rules are usually around permament signage.

So, get a wooden sign, nice clear lettering, and attach it to your gate with bolts (and a mini padlock so it can't get stolen) and then if anyone complains, you can say it is not permament, and can remove it.

My parents lived in a grade 2 listed building for years and there was never a problem with putting a sign up, it was always about a sign being in keeping.

They had to have one which was stone carved built in to the wall.
Worse. than. useless. Almost invisible in daylight and totally invisible in the dark.

My mum painted the carves letters with something like yoghurt to encourage stuff to grow in the recess of the letters, so it was darker.

@ilikebungalows that's it, let it all out, you're amongst friends here

I do miss paper maps. And Ordnance survey symbols.

This post has made my day