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!

This is why normal streets are a million times better than estates.

*new build estates

@FrankiesKnuckle
LOL. My friend used to live on a particularly odd road, it went from the top of a hill and half way down the hill split to go left right, almost at a T junction. And who ever created it gave BOTH sides the same numbers.

Everyone's house had a name to distinguish it from same number 10 metres away.

Throwing a calculator at a ceiling fan?

I am SO incorporating that into my vocabulary!

I feel for you OP.

On a different but slightly similar note I have a personal hatred for stiff and 'bitey' letter boxes that are too small to put letters or even Christmas cards. After delivering about a 1000 leaflets about our lost cat I ended up with a swollen and painful hand and fingers. (And a new appreciation for postal workers). - We found our cat by the way. She was bailed up next door for 4 days after stealing the neighbour's cat's food.

I could have a full brass band and laser beam light show outside my door and the delivery drivers by me would still pay no notice. I put detailed delivery instructions on every single order to help them find my door easier I make but still end up shuffling around the square trying to work out where the drivers gone.

[quote sashh]@FrankiesKnuckle
LOL. My friend used to live on a particularly odd road, it went from the top of a hill and half way down the hill split to go left right, almost at a T junction. And who ever created it gave BOTH sides the same numbers.

Everyone's house had a name to distinguish it from same number 10 metres away.[/quote]
We have a road like that in our town. Plus a series of interconnecting roads (FFS) with the same name. So Victoria street, Victoria walk, Victoria Crescent that sort of thing.

I'd love to be the person who names the streets. I could do a fuck sight better than 27 Victoria variations in the same block.

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

Pray for an Art Deco delivery driver?

Slightly different note, I've recently (2 days ago) signed a petition to Amazon asking for them to give their drivers more time for deliveries and allow them toilet breaks. Insane that a company as wealthy as that has all their frontline staff on minimum wage and in such Victorian conditions.

I know many of the supermarket deliver drivers have similar problems, too.

Sorry, I can't. Wouldn't get the planning permission needed to do that to my house.

@Timeforabiscuit

I also used to have the job of naming and numbering new build roads - I hated walks (with no road access but 20 houses hidden round a blind corner) with a deep and abiding hatred.

I live in a 'walk' - basically a little off shoot of a road, same road name, but pedestrian access only. The council street signs are very clear and all my deliveries get here. I used to live in a small block of apartments on a main road, clearly signed, all delivery drivers used to drive right past - I think they relied on satnav rather than also reading! I do feel your pain though OP, as some house numbering is bonkers!

@PolPotNoodle

I could have a full brass band and laser beam light show outside my door and the delivery drivers by me would still pay no notice. I put detailed delivery instructions on every single order to help them find my door easier I make but still end up shuffling around the square trying to work out where the drivers gone.

Really?

People who deliver for a job can’t find you and it’s their fault? Mmmm

Op YANBU.

I can imagine some of those examples can be very frustrating. No wonder they are stressed sometimes!

District nursing...I agree 10000%!
When I have a full busy list of patients to see in a day and drive down an entire road with NO house numbers at all whatsoever it wastes SO much of my time.

I too beg you all to sort this out.

@Thewinterofdiscontent Well its certainly not my fault, I didn't put the door where it is. Nor is it my fault that the drivers don't bother to read the big shouty capitalised instructions that explain exactly where the door is, how to find the door (literally a case of walking around the building), and what car to look for as it's parked directly in front.

Our old house was on a new build estate where some genius had decided to name our road beginning with a number. Think Seven Acres Road. So when I gave the address as 11 Seven Acres Road, I'd have to say NUMBER 11 and the word Seven... Acres Road.

When we moved in, sat navs didn't believe that we existed, so I got very good at giving explicit directions to people. Should have seen it coming, the day we went to view the property, we couldn't find it and wound up going to the showhome to ask for directions (parts of the estate were 3 years old at that point but the final phase was still being built).

Now I live on a very long road. I live in an Edwardian redbrick in a row of about 20. The rest of the street are all 1950s, so look very different. I just tell people to look for the redbrick terraces and we're smack in the middle with a blue door. We only have a small number plaque on the side of our porch but we do have a big window above that I was considering putting a number on.

In rural France they're just beginning to give out house numbers in small hamlets.
They're based on distance.
So in a hamlet of 10 houses if you're 100 metres off the main road then that will be your house number!

My rd is strange
The driveways are all in front on the houses but no numbers until you go down the path .
So I painted my number on my drive and put my number on my entrance to my path
I have a gate at the end of the path where I put a big sign that says “please put parcels over the gate “ and I have ring doorbell .
I also have an outside mail box that’s bright red and another sign with my number and a sign warning delivery guys of my vicious french bulldog 😂
I also have a floodlight that comes on when anyone approaches
My bin has a big sticker that’s says
Keep Calm I’m only a bin and I belong to number 1 😂

Opposite is even worse as you don’t have direct access you have to walk along a path or go up some steps to get to any of the houses
Whenever I see any delivery driver I always ask them what number do they want 😂
I always put delivery instructions in my orders

I give directions because we’re not easy to find but they’re often ignored because the delivery driver knows better. They all make the same mistake!

I’m very surprised you haven’t mentioned What3Words in your OP @Yesitsbess

Do you work for Hermes?
They seem to chuck it on the nearest doorstep they can find 😂

My dh is an ex-fireman. He used to say exactly the same thing thirty years ago.

Anyone and everyone with a mobile can access what3words. Just download the app from the App Store!

My parents live in a village in France, about 800 houses and the custom over there is to number the houses the distance they are from the church! No rhyme nor reason to trying to find houses at all. Have often wondered how delivery people work that out.

There's a village that I know where all the houses are owned by big landowner. There are road names, but all the houses are numbered in the order that the landowner built them.

So eg 'frog lane' has numbers 1, 12 & 27
And 'Cow pat road' has 2,3,4,5, 16

Etc etc.

Total nightmare for delivery drivers.

Our (an our neighbours) address is in your tiers of hell. Our road has 3 identical addresses with only one letter difference between the postcodes to differentiate. 22 Acacia Avenue PP12 0AE, PP12 0AB and PP12 0AP. They are really E, B and P as the difference. We get at least one mis-delivery a week.

To save our delivery drivers each address has a local network of deliveries - if we get one for our address twins we text to arrange a pick up or drop off next time we are passing. They do the same for us. Obviously this doesn't work for takeaways and large items so we have preprinted maps with a picture of the house they are looking for.

@PolPotNoodle

I could have a full brass band and laser beam light show outside my door and the delivery drivers by me would still pay no notice. I put detailed delivery instructions on every single order to help them find my door easier I make but still end up shuffling around the square trying to work out where the drivers gone.

Ha - I know what you mean. I ordered something for my Mum, who lives somewhere fairly rural. They couldn’t find it, so asked for clearer directions. I gave explicit directions, including the Google maps view of her village (which consists of literally about ten houses) with her house circled. They still couldn’t find it. Not sure what else we could have done! Plus, they had her number, never tried calling.

Op, we've just put in a new front gate with our house number on so hopefully we will get a gold star