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 feel your pain as we live on a street where the house numbers are a little odd so we try to explain that where possible. However, I find lots of deliver drivers don't read the full address - there is a street with the same name in another village 5 min drive away. At least once a week I get a phone call from a driver say they're outside but they're actually in the wrong village.

@sashh I'm all wistful now about paper maps. I love a paper map. And a pub...

I used to do home visits in an old job and there was one village where all the houses on the main road didn't have numbers, just names which would have been fine but two of the houses had exactly the same name. Luckily the postman was delivering the first time I went. The other one that used to make me laugh was when I'd call them to arrange the visit and they'd fail to tell me their house was a mile away from the main road down a dirt track with gates to open. I had to ask farmers in their fields a few times with directions like 'past the forth oak tree turn left at the bull's field and drive over the brook. Would have been nice to have the information first.

I have my house number in large numerals on the glass in the side light to my front door. Partner wasn't keen. Delivery drivers love me!

@SchadenfreudePersonified and @LucieStar

I was a bit of an arse about that, you only have to inform them if you make the change. Anything that helps us identify a place is good - please keep your gate sign up!

I'm in a block of six flats so there's a communal entrance with a brick porch.

On one side is a box with a handle ~ when you open it the numbers of the flats [to buzz] are marked, together with a 'Trades' one.

On the other side is a small metal box with numbers on. It's for us residents to put in a pin number and retrieve a key from a little flap at the bottom if we've forgotten it.

This confuses the hell out of delivery drivers as many don't realise there are Flat numbers behind the door of the box and try in vain to put a number into the wrong box !

I'm a renter not an owner so my hands are tied, my opinion doesn't count !!

@Dacquoise we do. WE LOVE YOU!

These stories are fabulous, I'm having a great time reading them.

Fourth oak on the left!

I live new build. Stupid developers haven’t even labelled the streets correctly so even the management company can’t find the house their aiming for.
However, we always include the instructions “Keep going up the hill, opposite the white church, house in the middle” on every order, have a large, well lit sign with our street and house number. Our neighbours have the same, it’s VERY clear we don’t live at “next street over”, yet we still get parcels for same number next street over.
Delivery drivers STILL don’t bother to listen/read the instructions! That drives me scatty!

Thank you! Nice to know my design ideas have a purpose!

I live in a perfectly normal road where the numbers go 1,3,5 etc on one side and 2,4,6 etc on the other. My house is among the very first in the street at the low numbered end. Numbers go up to the high 40's at the far end

I have a huge, fuck-off, shiny brass number, on a black plaque. It's 5" high and clearly visible until the street lights go out at midnight. Despite this, I frequently get deliveries for houses that have a number that starts with the same digit, for both odd and even ends of the road.

I especially love the delivery people who lug something bulky up my drive and front steps, then look at me like I've just killed their granny when I tell them that this is number 3, not 37, and stomp off swearing.

No numbers on bins here, as most people keep their bins at the house end of their drives, where they're not very visible, or behind hedges/fences if down at the road end. The drives are too narrow for a car and a bin.

Using what3words is a good call though, I'll find out what mine are. I'm surprised courier companies/drivers havent cottoned on to this.

I used to rent a flat that was 'flat 1, rear of 26-28, high street'. Most ridiculously addressed place ever.

Needless to say, we have achieved God tier status

According to your system I am in your 7th circle of delivery hell. However there are no street lights where we live (we have lights on our drive) and all the houses have names. I do have a dog but she helps you rather than hinder as I cannot see my drive from the house but she barks to alert me of your presence. I love delivery companies that tell you a time slot or, even better, let you know on a map where they are and how many stops to mine. I include my phone number on every order I do and am happy to help people find this house if the call. I have been known to walk out to the road to wave to delivery drivers when they are lost. I understand it is frustrating but not everyone wants to live on a well numbered, well lit street.

@MuddleMoo Nobody knows, the houses are off the main street on a newbuild 'walk' (everyone hates those apparently) and it is the first time in my life I have ever cried finding an address! No obvious reason for it.

@ApolloandDaphne I agree, I used to be very rural myself, as long as you're doing everything you can to help us find you then you still get a gold star, as does your dog

And I do appreciate that not all delivery drivers give two hoots, but a lot of us do, we want you to have your stuff, honestly!

I also appreciate really obvious instructions - I have literally driven to houses (as a health care provider) and not even known where my patients address is!

Many years ago a friend of mine was a surveyor. He was crawling along an inner city residential road looking for the house he had been commissioned to survey when his car was stopped and surrounded by half a dozen policemen. The road was well known for its prostitutes and the police were having a clampdown on kerb crawlers! It took calls to his office and client before they accepted he was there on legitimate business!!

Oh dear, you'd hate us! We are a house name, in the middle of a field with no landmarks .

We do give directions where there is the option but some sat navs try to take drivers the off road route which isn't ideal!

YANBU and your feelings are perfectly valid.

Thank you and to all the other delivery drivers who keep us supplied.

@Timeforabiscuit I am finding it oddly comforting that you also hate them!

Oh bless you. Yanbu!
I have a clear number on my house but maybe I'll get a light up one too.

My absolute nemesis are 2 roads in my town that I guess were bisected by a new road so that the road appears to come to an end but in fact it carries on on the other side of a dual carriageway. It now looks like a totally separate road but the numbers carry on. The first time I found that out I was nearly crying in frustration at how no 101 could exist when the numbers ran out at 99.

Same here!

The street opposite ours traverses two large roads (and apparently stretches from John O'Groats to Landsend). We are in what appears to be a cul-de-sac - how lovely, you say - delivery drivers will have no problems . .

Except that the bottom of the cul-de-sac is actually another street altogether - it just looks like a bit of ours. Not helped by the fact that they are built back-to-front, so their kitchens are at the from of the house and the living rooms at the back (I know, I know - look - I didn't design the damn things!)

It is also not just a single apparent cut-de-sac, but two with a linking road, making a "F" shape. The other apparent cut-de-sac which is part of our street is also a different one (and not the same as the one which is at the bottom of our part of the street. The numbers do follow a sequential pattern (around the "F") but none of the houses have names or visible numbers except for about three (ours included) where we've put it on door, garage door, and bins)

It is my firm belief that the architects and the town planners were taking crack cocaine together before, as you say, chucking a calculator at the ceiling fan (I do love that expression! ).

Since they closed one local school and moved all of the kids in the catchment area to the school behind our house (which has, believe it or not, no easy road access), our street gets chocka!. Any driver coming at school dropping off/ picking up times has a bugger of a job getting turned round to get out again. Further complications are caused by family opposite who have a huge drive and two massive "chelsea tractor" like vehicles that they don't like to have on their drive or in front of their own house, and so park in the turning area at the end.

It's a funny old life . . .

@Nocaloriesinchocolate I burst out laughing at that! Imagine!

@SamMil have you considered tying a weather balloon or similar to your house?

We don't have a number, just a name, and we live just as you come out of the town and don't have a street, but we do have the name of our house at the gate, and the house is on the road you drive up coming out of town, you drive past our garden but then have to turn into a small lane to get to us. Royal mail, DPD, Hermes and UPS all know where we are but if it's someone different or a take away delivery or something, we give extra directions including a description of how the house faces etc so I hope that's helpful to people. I'd say 99% don't seem to have a problem, some phone for directions. The main problem is that you don't really notice the house as you turn into the road but once you know or notice it's there, it's extremely easy to find!