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!

*tarting up

I live somewhere similar to number 5, so we still order all of our deliveries to our parents houses, which are number 1. Otherwise we have to include very long directions, which start with DO NOT FOLLOW YOUR SAT NAV!!

Other end of the spectrum I was getting something delivered to our office block and the delivery driver was confused on the main road

Me: "face towards the cathedral and drive along the road. Once you get to the precinct the gates are open so just drive in and i'm standing on the cathedral steps..."
The driver: "I've drove down that road and it only leads to a castle"

There was a lot of back and forward until I started referring to the cathedral to a castle...

But OP I'll get some proper numbers as we've only got tiddly numbers on the front door which I don't think anyone will see unless theyre actually standing at the door.

I will improve my signage. Thank you, OP. I needed a push.

We have a house name, not number. It's clearly above the door but perhaps not visible at nighttime ...

@EmpressSuiko

What do people do when they don’t have house numbers though and only names? I always write down some form of instruction but in the dark it’s still hard to see our house and impossible to see the name on the wall!

Same!

Pranct, if you live in a village where the majority have a name not a number; it's the householders responsibility to ensure that the PO are informed of the numbered house (Nobody escapes this) is now known as "Twatwaffle towers" as well as the PO address of 1 you're no better than anyone else street.

Numbers generally work,

Hope this helps

I love it where we live, rural where even your sat nav gets lost, our courtyard of houses have no numbers in and both our courtyard and housing estate behind us have the same name! It’s great if you don’t want to be found by debt collectors 😂

Because I wanted delivery drivers to be in no doubt which house was ours, I bought a 6 inch high mdf number 4 (hope that’s not too outing!) from Hobbycraft, sprayed it white and stuck it to the brick pillar at the front of our porch. It seems to me rather arrogant to just expect strangers to be able to work out which house is which if it isn’t abundantly clear.

@Yesitsbess

Pranct, if you live in a village where the majority have a name not a number; it's the householders responsibility to ensure that the PO are informed of the numbered house (Nobody escapes this) is now known as "Twatwaffle towers" as well as the PO address of 1 you're no better than anyone else street.

Numbers generally work,

Hope this helps

What if your property has never had a number and has been known by a name since it was built in 1913?

I live in an odd shaped cul de sac and I'm very clear on directions because I want my deliveries and I work in dispatch, I feel your pain!!

My hate is receptionists/post rooms who hoard the packages that I send, that are urgent, that have 'urgent delivery' on a red sticker on the box.... you could let the recipient know its with you.... possibly... maybe!!

To be fair companies sometimes change the directions they're given and sometimes even the address.

Say I live at 1 Any Road. On Any Road there are terraces as well as avenues and closes which go off Any Road and Any Road is included in their address but they have a different postcode to mine. It's extremely common for companies to ignore the 1 terrace/avenue/close bit and just put Any Road and the correct postcode, which thankfully is different to mine. Causes chaos though honestly I don't blame the people ordering.

Have you posted about this before, OP? I put numbers on our door as a result of the thread.

ex has big bin numbers on all sides of his bins and the tops as his thieving neighbour nicks them . I need to remind him to put in the feature his house has that no otehr near by has.

ours is flats. I put which driveway, and where the parking is on every fucking order/visitor. some of them (not the delivery drivers) just don't fucking read the bloody instructions. there is no on street parking round here for quite a distance which is why I put the parking instructions on stuff.

for ambulances I usually send someone out into the street to go and flag them down.

YANBU OP, and your post is extremely well-written.

I'm sorry, you'd hate us. Very rural and I'm rubbish at directions😬

I'm somewhere between God tier and mid tier. I have two sets of numbers on my house - brass numbers on my front door plus a large dinner plate size number plaque next to it. Our porch is well lit and we dont have long driveway, so you can see our house numbers from the road. We also live on a residential side road with standard house numbering system - odd numbers one side and evens the other. So why is it that I frequently get take away delivery drivers knocking my door with food for the neighbours?! Or just leaving it in my porch. It happens most weeks!

I have a door number but one thing that really bugs me where I live is that some deliveries find it difficult to find our door. We are on the corner and the numbers don't make any sense. The one next to us is about 30 numbers before our door number and the next one is about 5 out. They also conveniently placed a road sign right outside my front garden which is not actually my road.
The house next door comes under that road but we don't so why put the road sign there! I get people all the time knocking for that address even post!

@AlCalavicci thank you, love the stained glass!

people who live on a New build estate where the developer assigned house numbers by THROWING A CALCULATOR AT A CEILING FAN

Funnily enough I live in North Queensland, Australia, and our new build estates tend to do this as well. I hadn't realised it was a thing in the UK too. I don't understand it.

We live in a large village where in most of the roads house numbering is totally random. Our house number is virtually opposite a house with the same number, but we live on different roads because the road changes it’s name.
You can imagine the chaos it causes for deliveries and taxi drivers.
But we are at God level, we have a slate plaque with our number and road name attached to our wall.

YANBU re new estate developers....i Iive on a 5 house street although it’s not a street, think a type of cul de sac (only one way in/out in any case). We are the last house but we are No. 6.

I repeat there are 5 houses here.

Mystery!

My local street goes 50 to 242 evens, 51 to 191 odds.
They have also been arranged by a blind man.

YANBU.

I realised this was an issue with my house when my wine delivery guy rang the bell and said ‘is this number X’? In my defence I’d lived here less than a month. So anyway I now have a large brass house number stuck on my door. There was a number already but it’s rusty brown and not easy to see.

Can’t risk wine going astray.