Neighbours have numbered their house…

[UprootedSunflower]

Not with the post office formally, just decided it’s awkward to have a name instead of a number and started using it.

No houses here have numbers and never have. All named from before the area was built up.

It’s really really annoying as they have named themselves ‘one’ but they are set well back from the road and have a high gate/ alley to enter. Mine is the first obvious house front at the end of the road. So I get their post a lot.

It also makes delivery drivers get angry- no one else has numbers, like we should, or knock constantly to ask which end of the road number one is (most houses are set back so it’s me who gets the brunt).

Ive tried talking about it, but they are determined houses need numbers and it’s easier. I’ve tried stopping the postman, but it’s constant agency staff changing over.

So… I started simply marking anything through my door with the made up address and not our names ‘not at this address’ and popping it back in the post box. Aibu? They have got really cross!

They are the kind of people who order constant parcels and get post still

Don't just mark things not at this address. If a courier comes with a parcel just calmly say "These houses are all named. I'm not number 1 neither risk the other end. I'm unsure where your looking for perhaps it has the wrong address labeled. Then let him take it back. They'll sharp realise not getting their mail is going to affect them more. Oh and don't post their mail back every day hold y for a week or two and post it all back together. If she asks sif you have any mail say no. She will miss deadlines etc and it will have a bigger impact on her. Maybe even put a sign on your gate or door saying "Not number 1, please do not bring parcels or mail for number 1 here".

Do they not realise that named houses sell for more than numbered houses? Admittedly if they are never selling then in doesn't matter. Eventually the PO may force them to officially change and it's a big loss for whoever sells the house.

Maybe you should contact the council and make them aware of the ridiculous problem your neighbours are creating?!!

Agreed. They are the ones who are providing this fictional address for contracts, mail & deliveries. None of this is your problem and there's no reason that you should have to be constantly interrupted and go out of your way to provide a solution. At some point, if they want their mail & packages delivered, they'll need to sort it out. Their error = their inconvenience.

So… all houses are numbered when built, they have been for nearly 300 years. People then get their house number changed to a name if they wish. If you contact the GIS / gazetteer / street numbering officer at your local district (or unitary if no district council) they should be able to sort it out if they want to use a number, not a name, confirm the number, update their system and it will then link up to national systems which will steadily sort themselves out.

Long past I had a job were I made house calls so many addresses unknown to me (or often locals in the same road). This meant driving up and down the road searching for a house name. Once found I get comments like' Well manage to find it OK everytime' I even had one called Pink Cottage that was painted white that was in the dark on an unlit road. My existing house had a name but I reinstated the number out of consideration for delivery drivers, postman and callers. I beleave it should be a legal requirement to display the house number

Because what happens when the council wants to number all the houses?

We totally need a diagram 😃

In my experience of finding houses (quite a lot) in the vast majority of cases the odds are in the left and evens on the right. This starts from where the street leaves the main road, or if it straddles two main roads, the end of the road nearest to the town/city centre.

So if indeed they are the first house only not obviously so due to being set back, then them getting it changed officially may not solve the problem.

If they have just picked 1 for no obvious reason, and are several houses along the road, then they are indeed being totally U

Are you in Leeds or Bradford? My mum was astonished when she moved to Leeds from Chelmsford 50 odd years ago and found there could be banks of streets where anything up to about 10 of then could be X street/terrace/crescent/mount etc. She was convinced us was unique to Leeds although I’ve seen similar in Bradford.

Is it as unusual as she thinks? 🤔

It is a legal requirement to display the house number, although it is widely ignored.

If a house has a number, you can give it any name you want (within reason), but you must display the number so that it is clearly visible from the road and include the number in your address.

However, some houses don't have numbers. They only have names. In that case, any change of name needs the consent of the local authority and the Royal Mail Address Management Unit. The name cannot be replaced with a number unless the local authority allocates a number.

Whatever OP's neighbours think, their house is not No.1. There is no No.1, and there won't be a No.1 unless the local authority decides to give numbers to all the houses. Even if their house would logically be No.1 if the road was numbered, it is not currently No.1. If it ever becomes No.1, they must display the number clearly, possibly on the gate if the house is not visible from the road.

Think 59 would be better.

I have the opposite problem OP, I find a lot of my customers will give me a fancy-sounding address like ‘Primrose Cottage, New Street’ and I can’t find it on my LLPG (local land and property gazetteer) so I ask them to clarify, only to get a mumbled ‘132 New Street’

Makes me irrationally annoyed, you can’t just add a name or number, stupid fuckers.

As someone who has to deliver regularly in random villages, it’s so much easier if houses are numbered. Unless the names are in alphabetical order or something how are you supposed to find the right house? I’m usually delivering with limited time and not being able to find a house holds me up. I think numbering houses is a good idea but agree they might not have gone about it the right way.

YANBU. This is a ridiculous situation. If they want an official change there are ways of going about it that might help delivery drivers by changing databases. They haven't done that, they're just assuming that the world revolves around them and you'll act as an unpaid receptionist to clean up the mistakes. It's good that they're angry because this means their actions have had an effect on them. Don't budge now, OP. (You can put 'address does not exist' if 'not at this address' doesn't quite capture it).

The Fire Service usually have numbers for houses in villages so they know immediately where a fire is. It's something they instigated in places where the houses only have names. So this house may in fact be causing more confusion than it realises. Although I guess the Fire Service might use What Three Words these days.

How stupid of them to determine to be Number One when they are not obviously the first house. If they wish to rename their house then they need to make sure it's clearly "named" as I've shown above - then after a while they can just use One or 1. You are NBU to return anything that turns up at your door to sender.

"I beleave it should be a legal requirement to display the house number"

It is (either the number or name). If it isn't displayed on the house and the local council notify you to rectify the situation, then it is an offence if you fail to do this within one week. The penalty is a fine of up to £200.

I'm not aware of any council actually doing this though.

Sympathy OP. I live at bottom of street and my house is clearly numbered. The higher numbers are round the corner and then there is several block of flats with even higher door numbers.

Delivery men if they are looking for a number higher than mine seem to think my house is an information service and knock on my door and ask where number 34 etc is. Takeaway drivers do it too.

I wish the people in the flats would put on their delivery info - no 34 is in flats at bottom of street.

At one point I was going to put a sign up saying - do not knock here for directions to other houses/flats. Thankfully it seems to have calmed down a bit.

Other day Asda driver was looking for a flat and tried to get me to help him. He was blinding me with his lights and so I tried to walk round his van to get out the lights so I could tell him. Before I got a chance to reach his window I could hear him swearing at me. People are just so rude and entitled today. Delivery drivers I think are always under time pressure and so just do whatever is best for them and fuck everyone else.

I mean they might be but not with a “normal numbering system” if they’re built randomly over time - our house was built relatively recently - we’re one of two new houses (old house was knocked down and two put in its place) halfway down a road in a village where all houses just have names not numbers.

We were “allocated” plot one, our road, I assume next door was plot two, our road. But it was assumed we’d change to a name (which we did). Having number 1 and 2 randomly part way down a road with houses in both directions definitely wouldn’t help postmen!

It's a shame we don't use the system of some EU countries where each house has a specific postcode individual to that property that's used in the postal address. So no confusion over delivery.

A quick search reveals that although this seems to be the case for Ireland, it is not so anywhere else that I could find in Europe. Generally in the UK if you add the street number to the postcode it will identify the house, which is much more accurate than the system in France, Germany, Italy, Spain etc etc

They really didn't think it through, did they.

I'd keep doing what you are doing, and I might be tempted, for a short time to stick up a sign saying 'this is not no. 1' but fuck that to any ideas of engaging with authorities, giving myself a number, or anything else.

"...all houses are numbered when built, they have been for nearly 300 years."

While that's certainly true from the early 1800s onwards (if not even earlier in urban areas) it certainly doesn't apply to all houses going back "nearly 300 years" to the early/mid 1700s. While this may still be true about houses built in urban areas it certainly doesn't apply to houses in villages.

For example, in the 1871 census, of my eight sets of great great grandparents, three were living in houses without a number (although one was living on a narrow boat) and five lived in houses with a number.

This is what a house near us has done to stop getting a neighbours post.

Can you provide a source for this claim? Living on a road where all houses have names, that would suggest that all 80+ residents have applied to change to a name instead of a number. Which I find unlikely, particularly given the known history of the road.

That sounds like a “them problem” not a “you problem” 😂

I would be saying to them that if they want to make sure their post arrives they need to mark the address very clearly at the entrance and point out you are not the postman!