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!

@Saz12

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.

Yep. Same.

Should we just invent a house number to please the OP?

Hey, I've not rtft so apols if this is a cancel the cheque moment. Have you heard of what 3 words? It basically gives 3 words instead of a 6 figure grid reference. It takes you to the exact 3 square meters. So for example if you had a massive house or work place and you wanted to meet at a specific door you could give the what3words for that. If you included that in the address line or instructions that would be amazing! As part of the emergency services we use it. We also use it with each other. There is nothing more frustrating than trying to find an address in an emergency but this takes you right to the specific door!

We have our number on the door, and name on our van.
It doesn't cost much.

I haven't read much of this thread, but if there's anyone struggling like I did to locate properties I have an App recommendation.

Google play store search for "Delm8"

I have to deliver to a mix of rural and town addresses and this app can find them all. Type in the Postcode and it brings up a list of all the properties (recent new builds, house names, numbers etc) you click the link and it opens google maps and takes you right there. I'd say 99% accurate, been a real time saver for me. It has a free trial then its £40 for year but I would gladly pay triple this for the help it gives me.

Omg 100% agree with your post. One of my jobs is a delivery driver and my god, house numbers and named houses, drive me up the wall.

Numbers on bins and house numbers do make things easier.

We don't have a number nor do any of our 5 neighbours

99p! they also come in fancy rainbow colours

I understand your problem.
we're Very rural. Always put clear directions on.....drivers often don't read them!! 5 times we've had to repair our roof, after drivers ignoring instructions both on order and gate stating it's too narrow use entrance 20m that way >>>>. Those that do, generally find us no problems.
Dog is always behind fence, but bloody drivers always want to just 'say hello' she's so lovely blah blah, so she just jumps it for anyone now, and consequently has to be shut in or tied. even tried putting parcel box at top of drive,nope often don't look at instructions.......so I get your problem, but some drivers don't help.

This made me laugh. I do feel for you. BUT....
We live rurally but we now have 4, yes 4, signs at various locations, each very obvious, outside our house, each one giving the name of the house. Let’s say our house is called Pear Farm.
We get at least 3 delivery drivers arriving every day, having a driven past all 4 signs saying Pear Farm, who say to us, “Is this Apple Farm?”
“No Mr/Mrs Delivery driver, this is Pear Farm. Let me point out all 4 of the signs.”
“Oh yes, I didn’t notice them”
I have lost count of the number of Zoom calls that have been interrupted by this.

@TheAuthorityofJackieWeaver

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.....

Ohhh I totally agree with this!!! Was a midwife for years. These days I’m a health visitor & sometimes I drive round aimlessly in the general direction hoping against hope I see balloons in the window or sashes & wreaths on the door. Or best of all, a postman (angels when you need directions). New builds: I hate you.

The funniest op ever. Also very true. I've suffered too when trying to deliver ( or finding clients years ago when I was a carer)
I think you deserve a medal for raising this, ( and for comic skills)

• and whoever manages to get a petition going, with enough signatures that it gets debated it the House of Commons, should receive a knighthood. The country will be a better place when we all do our bit . I'll be putting big florescent numbers on my bins tomorrow

I love this Yesitsbess, bloody well said, as ambulance staff of 20 years, trying to find the right house with an injured or dying person is Hell Tier!!

We are the same postcode as the same number in the next road. Sat nav tells drivers to stop here with their:
Kebabs
Pallets of dog food
People cross we aren't selling rabbits
Fitted kitchen
Valentines bouquet every year for the last decade
Letter from their kids school saying they were being unruly
I stopped taking stuff round when they kept our two brand new iPhones.

I have giant numbers on my house with an outside light AND the numbers on my bin are fluorescent! I have never felt so proud. And God Tier!

We're in a village with NO house numbers - everyone has a name. I write clear instructions on any orders I place if I can.
We frequently get delivery drivers stop and ask us if we know where 'Honeysuckle Cottage' etc is and even I don't know the names of all the houses. In the village, they are referred to by the owner's names eg Bob and Sue's house so I ask the name of the person they are delivering to however I don't usually know surnames!
When Bob and Sue move, the house is known as Bob and Sue's old house for at least the first year of the new owners.
Newcomers often change house names so this makes life easier for the rest of us.
No good for delivery drivers though...

I have been doing deliveries recently and feel your pain! The worst for me though is people who know they have a delivery coming at night and leave no lights on closely followed by no numbers

I am your worst nightmare. No house numbers, sat bab takes you down the road, rural, three dogs and house set back from the road. Sorry

Yes - I’d echo this from a different perspective. Streetview has been really useful for doing my job from home during the pandemic. It is so much easier to find & evaluate sites / locations with obvious house numbers/names. My bugbear is the people who get their property blurred out; I get that some people might have a genuine need, but in general what are they hiding?

@3CCC

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

I was going to suggest that too, brilliant app. I had to call the AA out once when my Jeep broke down and I was in the middle of a huge field in deep countryside at a Hunter Trials. The AA man found me very easily.🙂

You are so right OP.

If people won’t do it out of consideration, they should do it out of selfishness, what if an ambulance needs to find your house?

Do you think the ‘what 3 numbers’ app may help you delivery drivers? It would be an easy thing for us ‘erberts to add the numbers relating to our front gate onto our delivery instructions.

Thank you for making me aware! Will take note! 🙂

To be fair, the only delivery drivers who struggle to find us, is domino's pizza...

@PurpleWh1teGreen No I absolutely agree, you should not alter your home in any way to please me, you're a grown-up. There are however, Doctors, nurses, midwives, ambulance drivers, social workers and every stripe of first responder excluding the Lifeboats who are all on this thread asking the same. It doesn't have to be a number, just anything that makes you easy to find - the purpose of the thread was to have a little laugh about it and maybe inspire people to have a little look at their home from the road at night to see if they could make it easier for us to deliver you a delicious dinner, or help you in an emergency.

I'm catching up with the rest of you now. Have been looking forward to giggling along with you all!

@Yesitsbess

AW YOU GUYS! I wrote my little response and then refreshed the page and you're all here being awesome with your numbers!

It would be hugely helpful if we could all access what3words but I think that's mostly emergency services-related. I mean, I consider food an emergency if I'm hungry but...

I AM LOVING ALL OF YOU WITH YOUR BIG NUMBERS AND BINS! LOVING YOU!

The “what3words” app isn’t just for emergencies. It’s been used in the last couple of years by organisers of events in the middle of nowhere ie., the countryside, fields, woods etc., that obviously don’t have postcodes to pinpoint the venue. The app works far better than any postcode, via a navigation link to Google Maps.