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

How is ‘not at the address’ wrong. They are neither at the address the letter was delivered to nor are they at the address on the envelope.
The post office address they have is where they are.

Strange! I would much prefer a house name over a number! They need to contact Royal mail and Google maps if they have changed their house name to a number. We did this after we name changed our house after our neighbours took the old house name for the new house they built next door.

It's infuriating isn't it. Our neighbour did similar - when we moved in he changed his house name from eg Knobhead's Cottage to Our House Name and added a word to the end.

4 years later we still don't get the right mail, so I send his back. We don't get the mail that he supposedly sends back 😑. Worst of all when he updated his address they removed our address entirely from the delivery system and left on both of his house names instead. We couldn't fill stuff in online or order online as the address didn't exist and not all places let you type in the address yourself. Took months to properly get it back to how it was before. Infuriating, but not the worst thing he's done 🙄
We get every single one of his bloody amazon parcels thrown over our wall or shoved in our post box too.

Keep sending it back and refusing parcels OP. They don't sound the type to back down and stop being arseholes though. You could always print out a massive number one and glue it to their gate 😄

No - unless they have formally paid the fee and applied to change their address with the local council/land registry, ‘No 1’ does not exist and items despatched to it are NOT correctly addressed.

Their address per the land registry is the house name, so returning post arriving at the OPs address as ‘recipient not known at this address’ or even ‘address unknown’ is totally fine.

The neighbours are the ones at fault.

Whereas their house is actually called 1 and their post is addressed correctly, it’s just being misdelivered.

By all means stick it back in the post box labelled ‘missdelivered’ but ‘not at this address’ is actively wrong and you’re compounding the problem.
Not really. It is correct to say not at this address because there is no such address. John Smith does not live at 1 Apple Street because there is no 1 Apple Street. He lives at Cherry Cottage, Apple Street and is pretending he doesn't. It isn't OP's responsibility to pretend 1 Apple Street is an actual address.

I hadn’t even thought about drop down menus when ordering stuff. I guess they must enter it manually each time when possible?
I just looked and it doesn’t come up as an option. The business at the other end of the street clearly is paying for changes as it’s always appearing with the new names they chose

They can be cross all they like. There is a way to solve the problem and it's not yours to solve.

Why don't you suggest to them putting their What3Words location in the delivery instructions for Amazon etc? That might help reduce the issue.

Keep sending it back. That'd drive me insane

You can sometimes amend it even if drop down- we have a name and a number and both are on the sign at the end of the drive (house not visible from road) but name easier to see (as bigger) so if I can add it into the address manually I tend to to assist the poor delivery couriers floundering around on our unlit road in the dark. However, yes, officially we are just Number, Road Name.

Huh? They're angry about you not accepting post that isn't for you? Why?

My house has a name. I think something like Rose Cottage or Wisteria House sound nicer than No.6.

I don't get why people do this. Our road is all named houses as well. Someone moved into one of the houses and took the name plate down when they moved the post and extended the driveway.

They now regularly complain about missing parcels. Like, give the delivery folks a chance ffs by putting a sign up!

Have you contacted your local council?

They can't just decided to give their house a number.

But to put 'not at this address' is basically sending a message to the postman / delivery person that the address on the label ('No. One Whatever Street') is your house but the addressee just doesn't live there..

I agree you should put 'misdelivered' each time.

House names are so twee and cringey.

I’ve always lived in houses with a name, it’s not an issue. They can’t just call themselves 1, no wonder everyone is confused.

What they should do is call themselves ‘Number One Cottage’ or ‘One Tree House’ or ‘The House With No Name’.

Why is OP unreasonable ? It’s she who is constantly getting their post and parcels. If they don’t want them returned they should do something about it themselves. And as has been explained in detail, you can’t just change a long standing address - the council and the post office have to OK it. It’s only easier to have numbers if every house is numbered, which is not the case here.

Even when the entire village is set up like that? Most of the roads in our village have no numbers, just names including mine. Houses of all ages and sizes. Nobody requested anything twee or personal, it's just what the addresses are.

I prefer them.

Rose cottage , 6 wisteria avenue

Is normal convention for named houses

Adds some logic to the system

Imagine if houses only had names - looking for a specific house on a road 509 houses long would not please any delivery driver !

I agree with this too: if you write "not at this address", it reads as if you are the resident of number one and they don't live there, but you do.
Try
"Delivered to Rose Cottage in error".
Then it becomes the delivery company's / Post Office's problem as well as the neighbours', but at least it won't come back through the door of Rose Cottage.

I’ve read this OP three times and I still don’t really get it? I also don’t get the correlation between your neighbour using a number instead of a name and you returning letters delivered for someone else?

No it’s not.

You even say it in your own post.

It might be correct to say this address doesn’t exist, but not ‘not at this address’.

There’s no actual requirement to register alternative house identifiers with the land registry. It just makes life easier if they’re on the post office list.

As demonstrated by the fact the post office attempt delivery. If it wasn’t allowed, they’d hold it at the sorting office.

The OP needs to stop thinking it’s reasonable to put actively wrong information on someone else’s mail.

Mine only has a name. Admittedly I do always put a note on internet orders to let them know where we are. Regular posties know the house but any new ones would probably wonder.