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!

I recently replaced our house number sign. We still had the twee sign that was up when we bought the house. I realised delivery people couldn't see it easily and I didn't like it.
Our new number is white on slate and easily readable from the road.

@Yesitsbess

I cannot tell you how much we appreciate lights left on and instructions (especially if you're rural). I work with kids who are my daughter's age, and I often worry about them, we deliver to very rural locations at night.

I never really thought about how scary the whole thing was until I was knocking on a door at eleven at night in the middle of nowhere with no lighting and no signal.

Okay BUT can I also tell you how scary it is to receive deliveries at 11 at night, if you’re rural? Often it’s just heavily pregnant me in my jimjams with my toddler asleep upstairs and I really don’t feel safe. I wish there was an option to request deliveries before 8/9pm only. (I get that this is unlikely to be in your control as the delivery driver though.)

I wish more delivery drivers would read the delivery notes bit.

We live in a street where the original houses have names, but new ones have numbers. I live in a house with a name that no longer makes sense (along the lines of Middle House that's no longer in the middle of the street).

I always, always put in the delivery notes that we're the house with the bright red gate between numbers X and Y and the "middle" bit doesn't correspond to where the house is. Yet 90% of the time they go to the bit of the street they think it'll be at, then phone me all stroppy that they can't find it.

No house numbers. No road name. No street lights. Long drives about 1/4 to 1/2 a mile apart. No mobile reception either.

To make it harder The Blue House is white and The White House is not a tile hung property with hardly any white to be seen. Then there are Hill Farm, Hill Brow Farm, Hill Barn, Hillside cottage, Hillside, Hill Farm House, Hillside Barn.

It doesn’t really matter who you deliver to, we all know everyone within about a five mile radius. We’ll always drop it off to the right house.

Oh gosh, finding rural properties can be a nightmare. Some villages have unnamed roads, so the address might just be a property name, village and postcode. Worse still, sometimes a new owner will rename their property, so having previous knowledge of the area can actually be a hindrance.

I’ve just realised that almost every road I’ve lived in is a nightmare for delivery people. My current road is numbered in order, except for a clump of houses in the middle. My previous home’s entrance was round the side in another street.

My home before that was in an old street. Over 300 years, it had become a hodgepodge of residential and commercial properties of different ages and sizes. It might well have been numbered by a gang of toddlers armed with letter and number stickers.

We have bright bright lights and numbers everywhere
Going to look at getting a bigger number though!

I live in a new build estate that even I can’t understand and hate if a driver stops me because I can never really help. The best temporary address sign I saw for ai wine shop just loved in bc was 1 of the light up cinema boxes placed in the front window. The had the number, street name and surname displayed

My flat has a blue door with a large brass 2 on it. I live at the top of my street in a town. The only time I had issues, was with dpd. They had new drivers. Their satnav system directed them to #38 of my street. Youd think that anyone with intelligence would use some critical thinking. Nope, they took a pic of #38 and said i wasn't in.
This lead to me ringing dpd and explaining the problem and get a redelivery. The next day, I waited outside my front door. Dpd, stopped outside #38 again. I basically zoomed down the street and got my parcel from there.
Every other delivery has arrived OK, from other couriers.
I have more problems with people not reading the postcode. There are other villages with the same address.

You’d hate us. We live on a new-ish build where the developers must have gone ‘Who needs space and greenery, I reckon we can squeeze another house on this street!’ and shoved our house at the beginning of the road after every other house had been numbered.

So we became 2A, right before number 2. Then to top it off we have the same surname and initials as our neighbours at number 2! We always get deliveries for next door and vice versa despite us both having very clear numbers.

I have a large plate with both the house number and the name on the front of my house. We don’t use the name but left the name plate as some older residents still refer to our house by its name.
I have glow in the dark numbers on my bins.
I have a motion sensor light over the front door plus two furthersensor lights on the outside of the house.
I don’t have a dog so no risk of getting bitten or a wet nose in your crotch or your leg humped.
Parking outside is never usually a problem but if for some strange reason the road is full I don’t make a fuss if a delivery driver pulls on to my large driveway.
There is only six house in my road with three on either side and I am the end house with a distinctive driveway which I always discribe when placing a home delivery food order .

Do I win a prize?

Totally agree, I used to be a home carer and it's a nightmare in the dark
Google maps have handily altered my address. It's worked perfectly for 14 years and now takes you to the back of the place. I keep finding confused Amazon drivers in my garden looking for my next door neighbours

YANBU OP I hear you Loud And Clear And I Try So Hard

Imagine my street is called Appletree Road.

I live in a New Build called Appletree Gardens, which is ON Appletree Road.

I live for example at 8 Appletree Gardens on Appletree Road, and yes, of course, there is also an 8 Appletree Road.

I have EXTENSIVE delivery instructions on anything I use regularly (Amazon etc)

Occasionally I buy things from sites and I don't know who their courier is.

If its DPD they reset my address to 8 Appletree Road EVERY single damn time. I leave instructions and they still drive the fuck off, after bothering the neighbours, who have complained, it's an elderly couple they keep bothering, and its mortifying, I've even bought them flowers.

Living in a New Build is frustrating as fuck. BT fucked me about so much during the move, going to the wrong address repeatedly, that I left them, everytime I rang them, they sent me a follow up email STILL with the wrong address and then I had to apparently wait another 48 hours to reset the appointment which was of course still wrong as their system wouldn't recognise the new build

So yes New Builds ARE Poo Tier but its just as bad living in one.

I have a number on the front of my house. It’s 8 inches tall and illuminated with a light at night. People still claim they can’t find my house. They still knock and ask is this number 123? What more can I do? There’s also a doorbell which is backlit with a yellow light 24/7 - people still don’t press it, they still knock and I don’t hear them.

Twice in the last week, I’ve had deliveries insist they are for me..... but not. Think no 65, when I’m no 55. The number is on the outside of the building (flats), and on my door, in big brass numbers. I had such an argument with one on Saturday night, I almost took the Chinese takeaway, just to keep the peace.

Our cul de sac goes 1,3,8,6,4,2. Causes much confusion. We do all have numbers though

I am just about making my little house easier to find, larger number, and more light. etc. I live off road, and down a little gravel path. I am in a row of eight little terrace cottages, with no street light, being off road. A couple of the other houses have a front light, but I do not. Most deliveries here, are at the back doors, as some don't have a front door, a bit weird, but old fashioned here. I have a shed at the back, with my house number on, as I will usually inform delivery people, to use the shed as my safe place., and apart from the little gravel track to come down from the road, there is also a little arched entry way to get to our back doors. I think that you would hate delivering here, but I am endeavouring to make things better, light wise.

I have got written instructions how to find me, and also I would get a phone call from some delivery people, to ask for directions to my place.. I had supermarket delivery a while ago, and the man had to park away from the main village street,as it was full of cars, as everyone has to park on the road here, and some people have two or three cars in front of there little houses.

I told the delivery man. that I would go and get my torch, and go and meet him somewhere in the road.

I just thought, that I might buy one of those huge lit up plastic flamingo garden ornaments, for my little dark front garden, I hate them though, so have to get some more solar lights instead.

Our road is silly, and confusing.

Our side of the road is 1,2,3,4,5 Shed Cottages, Shed Road, and the opposite side of the road is 1,2,3,4,5 Shed Road.
Always popping across with each others post. I don't blame the delivery drivers/postmen at all. It's stupid.

Well all the couriers know where my home is; it's well labelled both on the building (a low rise block of 75 flats) and my door, and there is sufficient lighting and parking and a plan of the building in the lobby (and logical flat numbering).

But some of them don't even try to deliver; they just drive round the building to pretend they attempted delivery (I assume for the GPS tracking; I have seen them do it when I'm expecting something) and take it straight to the collection point instead. Which in the case of UPS is almost a mile away and I am fed up of walking there!

APC claimed they attempted delivery of one item over 10 times, when they didn't actually try a single time, or notify me in any way, and then they just sent it back.

I know they don't try, because the intercom goes through to my phone, so I ether answer it and buzz them in, or there would be a missed call.

And DPD leave blank missed delivery cards pinned to the noticeboard outside our building so we have no idea who they are for, or how long they have been there as there's no name or date on them.

I realise you probably don't have enough time to do all the deliveries, but that's what unions are for. And it means it's disproportionately flat-dwellers who are less likely to get their parcels, and they are more likely to be poorer and/or members of social minority groups and have less time/ability to go and pick up parcels.

In my village numbers only serve to divide up (some of the) terraces and semis. So you get 1,2,3,4 Hill Terrace, 1&2 Sea View etc. Detached houses are named only. There are therefore something like half a dozen No. 2s on a given road. Little information is actually shown on Google Maps. The post code will actually send Google Maps off to a dead end somewhere at the top of the village. I've tried to get it corrected.

To make matters worse, my house sits on the junction between two roads and my address is on the longer elevation against X Road, not the entrance which sits just off it on the first small part Y Lane. To make matters worse, X Road stretches the entire length of the village so there are dozens of possibilities.

So, when I phoned the garden centre down the hill to place an order, I was careful to mention that I could be found "right at the junction between X Road and Y Lane" and I was very insistent that the driver should absolutely not use the postcode. Imagine my surprise then when I got a phone call from the driver who said that he was on said road at the top of the village - the girl who took the call hadn't passed my instructions on. I asked him if he knew where the pub was. I then told him to drive there and then head towards the local school.
"Keep driving all the way until the school?"
"No, keep driving until I stop you"
Standing in the road waving is the only way.

The next time that I needed compost, I carried it up the hill on my shoulder.

Come and work in NZ! In towns we have mailboxes at the gate with our numbers on them - easy as

when we moved in a number of years ago, our front door had brown numbers on door, brown is the colour of our front door, our front door does not face the street.
one of the first things we installed was white street facing numbers on the front of the home.
I was thinking more if we had guests try to visit.

I live in a pain-in-the-arse place, sorry. But always ensure the delivery instructions are clear and usually add "call me!" with my phone number in case they have difficulty. Big numbers wouldn't help in our case, it's finding the building that's the problem.

We live on a small row of 5 cottages on the main road through the village, but our 5 cottages have their own road name IYSWIM. Shouldn't be a problem except Google Maps doesn't think we exist, and there are three properties with the same house number with the same postcode.

I always add "opposite turning for X Road" because I am a hero. Most of our deliveries make it to us eventually

OK, I'll admit it, I need bigger numbers. My biggest problem was trying to explain which route to take up my hill. Four ways are steep but doable. The other two are steps created by Satan himself. A never ending staircase situation. Cyclists get to the bottom and think they can do it, it looks so easy from there. Then they KO in my pizza half way up. Now I insist on car drivers only.

I'll put a bigger house number up when you stop putting parcels in the rubbish bin that has the non-recycling rubbish. At least put it in the recycling bin and don't do it when the bin is at the end of the drive.