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

My house only has a name too. It's also down an unnamed track half a mile from the road, with no Google Street view.
Same here. Even better, our postal address is just ‘House Name, Village A’ (no street name, we are down a dirt track in the forest) but the closest village is actually Village B. We added a few details (eg House Name, off X Road, Village B) only to get a very stern letter from the Post Office telling us to use our correct address as the one we were using was confusing the post man.

I have an unusual occupation, and live next to a famous person. My friend once sent me a birthday card to ‘BitB the Occupation, next door to Famous Person, Village’ and it got here. Made the postman smile, he knew exactly where to bring it when he saw it.

I never had a number in the UK and never had a problem with deliveries. I now live in France, where apart from the cities, numbers are very unusual and the sat nav still takes you to the door, as the names of houses are on the list

How do people know what you personally have or haven't seen in London?

I wouldn’t say it’s “very rare”.

lots of buildings are converted to residential these days- lots of “old school house”. “Church house”, “the barn”, “the old Inn” etc. there are several houses near here with names because they are converted churches/schools/libraries/pubs.

I’ve lived in 3 houses with a name- one in a tiny village where all houses were named, one on a sold off estate which was a shepherds cottage, one which was an ex vicars house. Next door was “church cottage”.

Ah, the dream! To live in a house big enough and isolated enough to have a name instead of a number 😁

Although recently I was searching for a house by name on Dartmoor in the pitch black. Each house was up a long driveway and none of them had the house name at the end of the drive! I had to drive up to several houses just to read the names, then reverse out of the drives. I could have done it on foot but the wild ponies, random cows, and millions of sheep are quite scary in the dark!

Nope.

One of my friends lives in a newish house that has a name.

In that part of the town she lives in all the houses on the streets only have names. So any new houses have to have names.

Royal Mail and Amazon don't have problems delivering to them.

No number here - and no road name either! We do live on a road but there is no sign to say the road anyways so it wouldn’t be any easier.

it is a nightmare because all four dwellings have a similar name associated with the original farm that was here.

we are just ‘name’, ‘village’ !

Why not use what 3 words, I work rurally and my team and I use it for lots of addresses without numbers.

We are a village of all house names, only 5 of us. No street name just 'house name' 'village'. To confused matters more we are next to a landmark, think big forest. Our house is the furthest from the forest but has a name like 'woodside'. That really gets them. And the amount of people I tell that we are the first house and I see them go flying past.... they don't even slow down to have a look at the very clear house sign. I've never had anyone ask for a number though.

What really bugs me is the continued existence of "Avon" which is a mandatory field in many online order forms.

Not only is it obsolete and has been for many years, but due to a quirk in the postcodes it attaches me to totally the wrong area which causes a load of unnecessary grief at times.

I live in a town so numbers are common although many houses just have names. In the areas around the town not only do houses not have names or numbers many of the areas have numerous names. My friend and her husband live in the same house. She calls the place one name, he calls it another. It is gas sending them a Christmas card as you have the dilemma as to who's preferred address you put on card.

Many houses in the country have no number and you just can’t randomly start using one. I’m shocked that so many people don’t seem to know this. Some countries (Taiwan, my DP’s home) makes sure every house does have a number but not on the UK. The solution to this would be to use What3Words more. You should be able to leave your What3Words location in the delivery details.

We’ve had two houses with no numbers, it’s very common in the country side, all of my neighbours have house names and no numbers along with all of the houses in the main village, the only ones with numbers local to us are some of the newer builds.

We get a lot of eBay buyers not turning up once we give the address out. It looks rural on Google maps but it's not and because it's next to X farm (that hasn't been a farm for over 40 years) people are put off. It pisses me off and we get 'oh I didn't realise it wasn't in the town centre' despite me putting the bloody postcode on the listing.

Did get someone off freecycle get the hump in the summer when they ignored the postcode and drove around the village because they 'didn't think it would be on this side' 🙄.

I see lots of people are suggesting What3Words. It's brilliant. Even if someone has given me a house number I still ask for a what3words . Try driving at night and trying to find a house with a house number, it can still be really difficult. Houses either don't have their numbers displayed or it's too dark to see them.

It would surprise me to be honest. I know a lot of houses with names and apart from the two large farms they all have a number too. It must be infuriating for delivery drivers to have to drive down the street reading every name to find the right house!

Remarkable discussion for a phenomenon that really seems limited to the UK and Ireland. Others have mentioned France - it’s true that rural areas do not have to have house numbers, but all communes of more than 2000 people must. Rural areas in parts of Canada used to rely on family names on the postbox, but as mail delivery points became more centralized, house numbers were assigned to make things easier for emergency services. Not difficult to do - you start at one end of a road and move upward, alternating odd and even.

I think, as others have said, the people who are really being unreasonable are those who don’t prominently display their name or number, including making sure it’s well-lit at night.

It isn’t that unusual at all. Probably see it less in very built-up areas but it certainly isn’t weird.

Maybe people insisting on a number don’t understand that many many houses have only ever had names and you haven’t changed it from 153b to The Gables to sound posh 😆

I don’t understand why people are commenting that it is annoying/inconvenient. Yes, it surely is for deliveries etc is but that is hardly OPs fault, that is her address 🤷‍♀️

Ireland has a unique eircode for every address, so its not an issue.

People can never find mine

It's number 15
If you stand looking at it, there's no 12 (a house) and no 17 ( a house
In between those two is a building with doors and with an intercom and labels for apartment numbers 13-16
Apparently the entire door and intercom system is invisible

My last address had numbers but I think they had a long lunch when they numbered them
It was 87A above 12B, 12 was next to 90...

thankfully we had a usual postman but when he was on holiday we found the replacement looking very confused. There was absolutely no pattern to the numbers

I think, as others have said, the people who are really being unreasonable are those who don’t prominently display their name or number, including making sure it’s well-lit at night.

There some streets were I am - I actually live on one - where the odds and evens aren't directly opposite. I always give landmark information but it is amazing how many individual couriers/delivery companies can't read.

There are also roads where the road name changes in the middle of what appears to be the same road so the door numbers suddenly change from 126 to 60. It is actually a different road but there are no road signs on the boundary.

SamphirethePogoingStickerist - is that in an area you know quite well? And you are visiting in the daytime?

Totally different in experience if its dark and/or an area you arent familiar with. You dont seem to mind but the majority of delivery drivers/other doorstop visitors dont agree. Neither do the majority of comments Ive personally seen on this thread either. Fine if you are alright about it but most people find it a pain.

Personally the thing I hate most is when you have a really long road, then set a little back from the road on a path you have a row of houses say ‘Harman’s villas’. Numbered 1-10 or something. So the address is 3 Harman villas, xxx road. But it’ll be between numbers 61 and 62 or something nuts. Then further down the road again, another row of 10 houses or so with numbers separate from the rest of the road.

Theres all sorts of weird reasons addresses are had to find, but having a name really isn’t the be all and end all.

Most house's have numbers. My job involves visiting people's houses and it's a pain when there's no number. I went to a house where none of the houses had numbers and had to drive up and down a few times to find the right place.