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!

@Scotland32

Yes!!!! Every Friggin day, same problem. We considered putting signs saying 'this house that way' that house this way' etc etc. Buquivkly realised, they wouldn't see those signs if they didn't see the others clearly stating the property name.......

YesitsBess I have those lit up numbers on my house!
As an aside, I think you may have stumbled on a new profession, you are very good at writing! Imagine the scene...a courier depot, a sarcy manager a lazy supervisor and every character of delivery driver your witty brain can muster....you will have to come up with the name of your sitcom though I've used all my brain power already today!

May I just add as the wife of a Paramedic that there is nothing worse for a Paramedic to drive down a street at night with no numbers visible and nobody flagging them down to show them the right house. Having bright clear numbers (put them in an upstairs window too) can literally make a difference by getting them to the right address faster!! Thank you!

@GellerYeller

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.

People cross we aren't selling rabbits

I would be effing furious if I was denied a rabbit on the pathetic excuse that you sell them. You are lucky to be alive.

*That you DON'T sell them

Snakes and bastards!

what3words.com/daring.lion.race Have you ever tried this? Seems ideal if you’re remote, wonder if the emergency services in UK use it?

what3words.com/daring.lion.race Have you ever tried this? Seems ideal if you’re remote, wonder if the emergency services in UK use it?

Update for the what3 words crew (I appreciate it is a very long thread). It doesn't work unless you tell us the words, I don't take orders, just dispatch them so am not in a position to tell people to do this.

However, I am writing to the CEO of my company to explain why it's a good idea to update our website and training to include the option to include it on orders. Not least because people (hopefully) order food far more frequently than they would order a first responder, so my argument is that as well as reducing delivery times, we would also be doing a public service by familiarising people with their words in case they ever need to give them to a 999 call handler.

I will keep you posted on how that goes because I am a tenacious sod who won't give up!

I have had a great laugh catching up today, and thankyou to everyone who makes an effort, I don't speak for every driver, but I apologise for the rubbish ones anyway.

I too completely lost it at the rabbit bit

Lol, my house (and others around it) have no numbers. Also it’s not a road as such but a sort of square that look like three separate roads. The name doesn’t have ‘road, street’ or whatever in the name. Think like ‘Birchwood, Glades, TownName’
I don’t know the solution for deliveries, I tent to describe my car and Reg outside on the drive.
The worst bit is it’s a 40 road on my side so not the easiest to slow down on to look.

OP I feel your pain

Try dealing with overseas students whose common sense is lower than a snake’s belly who give you an address as Flat 3 London Road, London

No postcode, no road name and then get confused when their delivery doesn’t turn up as the driver can’t find the flat

As a carer, I salute you! Driving around on time sensitive visits when you can't find a house number to orientate yourself is NOT fun!

I hear you. I once had a delivery that just had the letter F and a postcode. Bloody found it though. Genius I am!

@Tessabelle74 and all the other emergency and medical staff, I am now on a mission to make what3words mandatory for food ordering. Then people won't be trying to download the sodding app when their house is on fire or Nan has taken a tumble. They will all learn their words if it kills me!

@Yesitsbess
That would brilliant. I spent 15 minutes yesterday trying to find a new client in a new build in a pedestrianised area! Luckily I stumbled across a man walking his dog who pointed me in the right direction!

I knock on doors for the council doing canvessing for elections. I always swore that when I ruled the world every house would have a number, visible from the street and a light that came on outside when the door was opened. I love that some Amercan towns have the house numebr stnaciled on the kerb. The number of times I'd be looking for say 20, find the first house with a number was 26 then find the next was 28 and have to back track. Since then I have always made sure I have a large door number and external lights

Where I used to live the front doors were set back in porches off drives so difficult to see any number on a door so we put big metal numbers on our garage. There were also only two houses with odd numbers on one side of the road all the rest were even. The odd numbered houses actually backed onto each other and each faced different roads so didn't look like they belonged in our road at all. Glad I'm not a delivery person I'd end up throwing stuff. Amazon definately know where I live during lockdown, but I think my neighbour opposite and I are are competing for the most deliveries in a day/week/month 😬 I will now look for bigger numbers for my door but already have them on my bin 😊

ALRIGHT YOU LOT. I DID IT!

Dear XXXXX,

• can't include this bit as it would identify the company-

I recently started a small campaign to ask people to number their houses as clearlyas they could in our local area and across the UK, to help drivers be safer, more efficient, and more environmentally friendly when searching for addresses. Hundreds of people have engaged with me and are using bin stickers, reflective and light-up numbering on their houses, and adding unique objects in their garden to addto our 'instructions' section when ordering XXXXXXXXXXXXXX.

Many people have suggested we incorporate the what3words app into our ordering system, XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

My reasons for XXXXXX making an effort to really promote the what3words app are:

People order food far more frequently (one would hope) than they order a first responder, XXXXXX would actually be raising awareness of this service which has mapped the entire World and people would learn 'their 3 words' for their food order, but they would then have them memorised for an emergency situation for a 999 call handler.

Our ADT would decrease, potentially Worldwide. The 3 words guide drivers to a unique 3m location, preventing us having to slow down dramatically on main roads, causing hazards, and wasting time and fuel looking for rural or trickily numbered addresses.What3words works offline, and in places with patchy GPS.

It would help us find new build properties that aren't yet on maps.

I'm sure you are already considering this, but I wanted to tell you how real the desire is for us to use it as soon as possible, perhaps a link to download the app from our site? I don't know, I'm just a driver but it seems like a good idea to me.

Many thanks for your time today.

I now think what three sodding words should give me a job

I live in a rural area and sat nav takes you to the wrong place. I try to give directions where possible and have a large, luminous number (horrible but practical ) outside my door. I feel your pain and try to be VERY NICE to delivery drivers 🤩.

Let us know if you get a response!

@Flatoutonsofa and we love you for it. We really really do!

Oh god. Yes this. Near me people in gargantuan mansions with names like “Grotesque house”. All off huge main roads and you have no idea where on the road said mansion is. Scary automatic gates everywhere so you can’t nip off the road to check a map. And despite being lit up like sodding Christmas trees, no lighting anywhere near the house name. I have actually driven home once or twice and refused to do the work. At least of you live in one of those, give me some landmarks.

@Fallingrain and it's always on a bloody road which is 60mph. I am dreading traffic getting back to normal as I will constantly have someone up my rear end when I'm slowing down to read the tiny poxy signs!

@BlowDryRat I will most likely get fired if the CEO finds this thread but it has been 100% worth it. I cannot tell you how much you have all made me laugh over the last few days

I live on a road that has houses on one side and flats on the other. I now know the names of all the residents in the flats with my number so I can redirect deliveries now. Sometimes residents forgot to put the flat name sometimes drivers didn't read the address properly. One day I had a catalogue delivery, vitamins, a Chinese takeaway, an Indian takeaway, 5 amazon parcels and an ambulance. Not one for me