To think it’s not that unusual to have no door number?

[EncyclopediaOfNought]

My house has a name, no number. I frequently have the issue where people get rude over it, especially through Facebook marketplace and Olio etc.

I give the full address, they ask for the number, I clarify the house has a name: ok at this point.

Then then frequently persist and get rude. ‘I need the actual door number’, ‘um, just give me the number’, ‘look at your neighbours house, your number will be the one after that!’ (No houses have a number on this thread road), ‘oh that’s nice you have a name for it, but what’s the number’, ‘yeah, people think it looks smart but what’s the number’m the post office use’

Just now I’ve had ‘I’m not coming unless I get the number’. For a free item 😂

Is it that damn hard to get that not all houses have numbers??? Or is it the classic Aibu attitude of people, basically not getting that not everyone lives in exactly the same world?

Obviously more houses have numbers than not, but it’d have thought the average adult is aware that not every house has? I have an otherwise normal road in a city, only a handful of houses for the postcode so not that hard to find. Google maps etc are exactly accurate in pinpointing the house

Our house is named too. It’s a nightmare!!

The whole street is named. It’s a very long long road (miles) through a country lane with houses either side. The postcode takes you to the middle of the road but not one single house has a number and they have to drive along reading the signs so I often get irate people who can’t find us, delivery drivers usually.

The worst is when they say I’m near the name of another house of the street
and expect me to know where they are. As if I know the names of 100 or so houses 🙈

Never had this issue and been here nearly 10 years!

I recently went to a road that was something like:
15.16,17,2,18,19,20…

I bet they have fun at number 2

I went through a phase with a certain delivery company whose depot returned all parcels to sender with no delivery attempt- because the address didn’t have a number.

I do wonder how hospitals, schools, places of business etc receive parcels without numbers. I’ve never worked in an office with a number - it’s always been “buildingname” or similar.

The house I grew up in had a name, a few houses were built on land between the other houses on the road. So between numbers 6 & 7. All the new houses were given names because otherwise the whole street would have had to be re numbered! Luckily we were the last house on the corner so it was easier for people to find us.

How do you get to the right house then? Satnavs are less reliable than Google as they need updating, Google isn't always reliable. It takes you to the wrong street for my house. I use Google to get me close then I use road signs and follow the house numbers.

For you I'd look for the library on Google and get there. Then look for your house.

But I did say that you ARE being helpful. By explaining where your house is. But if you read everyone replies there are lots of people that are actively unhelpful which is creating the issue of people seeing a house name and thinking "Ah great, I'll never find that!".

Ah sorry.

Conversations are typically:

• do you know where the library is?
• yes
• I’m house next door, black door
• but what’s the door number?
• it’s just a name. I’m next door to the library
• i need a number

So annoying and an utter waste of time for anyone who needs to get to the address.

Ambulances and district nurses spend ages driving round looking for a house with either no number or even worse, no sign, number or marking on the property itself.
The amount of time I have wasted driving up and down screwing up my eyes trying to find this on a house is infuriating.
Im too busy for this kind of nonsense.

People are muppets, don’t over-estimate the average intelligence.

I too live in a house with no number, as does my next door neighbour and several other houses in our village. I’ve known it in other towns I’ve lived too.

It is not at all unusual.

YANBU.

A lot of people have never been to the countryside and genuinely do not understand that some roads use names instead of numbers.

I do wish there was some kinda way to allocate every house a number - but there ain’t.

The worst is when they are on an entirely different street, or in the local petrol station 5 roads away and get all angry ‘I can’t see your house!’.

Um, no. You are a long long way away

They walk among us

@ColinRobinsonsfamiliar I often get this from angry people trying to find me. I’ve been shouted at so many times!

But if a street of 100 houses all have names what can I do? Even if I change my name to number 1 then it won’t solve the problem because nobody else has a number either. It’s not like I’ve done it on purpose to annoy folk 😄

Ours is named. We're one of four houses in our postcode though so easy enough to locate. I always leave instructions as well as an address when I can when I'm ordering stuff.

I had this. When people (usually couriers) insisted on a number, I would just say 0 or 1.

Same for me, I visit elderly and vulnerable people so punctuality is really important as they can be waiting for me. I sometimes visit people who seem to take pride in how difficult it is to find their house and it just causes delays for the rest of the day. Since covid it's been much more difficult to stop and ask directions from people and the catch 22 is that often it's older and infirm people who're struggling to get to get to the door only for me to torment them with asking directions.

What can people in OP's situation realistically do about it, besides being sure their own house name is prominently displayed — unilaterally impose a numbering system on the street? Pick a random number they like the sound of and make it their new house name? If it causes you that much trouble, you could try and get your professional body to lobby for government-mandated universal numbering of houses.

Give the the what3words location such as same.happy.nobody- some delivery apps allow you to put this info in already.

I often tell them to park at the library if it’s just Facebook, and say I’ll pop out to meet
them.
…. but then you have to deal with the people who get suspicious over this and think it’s a weird scam if I don’t give an address

You’d hate where I live then. Most houses have a name, not a number and there’s no street name either. The official postal address is just House Name, Village Name, Nearest Town (10 miles away), Postcode. A few houses have a completely random number, not in any particular order. Some houses have had more than one name as people have moved in and changed the name of their house, so even locals scratch their head about where an address is.

same! I'm very good at spelling it out though

Of course, there is. Just start at one end and number sequentially. The reason we don't is that we are quite happy not to, because there is no good reason to. It isn't because we can't number houses. The house I live in and the rest of the road don't use numbers and the names quite happily uniquely identify each house (even if some names are annoyingly similar).

P.S. I like house names, they usually mean something and they don't require awkward hacks like 12a when a new property is built or a house split into flats.

Couriers were extremely grateful when I offered to meet them in the nearest car park, specially if they'd already done the mile up a dirt track from the car park to my house!

My road odds start at 9 on my side, evens opposite at 2, then the 1-7 house at the bottom of the lane on the evens side. They have also moved our village boundary to encompass 2 new housing estates which locals and delivery companies struggle to find.

I really wanted to name my house but dh said no, he did not think "The money Pit" or "Costa Fortune in renovations" would go down well in the village.

Actually in France apparently every house has an 'official' number, even in the middle of nowhere, which is made of the number of metres away from whatever the nearest official point in the postcode (or whatever) is.

Which gives you odd things like the only 3 houses on a road being number 5789, 5880 and 6320 or something, which makes it fairly useless for finding them!