UKC

Just moved into a new house and had a lot of parcels not turn up and I think I have realised why. On our street we are number 14, and at the very beginning of the street there is a complex of bungalows that have a different street name, but no actual street just a green area in front of them. The rear of these bungalows back onto our street and they have all got house numbers with letterboxes on their back doors, one of which is number 14. I will go down this week to see if they have all our stuff but is there anyway I can fix this? Naming our house is one thing but it will still have to say House Name, 14 Our Street, Bristol in the address line and couriers aren't renowned for having loads of time to spare deciphering addresses.

In reply to Cheese Monkey:

You could change your number to 14 1/2?

Some, superstitious, friends of mine bought a house No 13. They went to the post Office who agreed that they could re-number it 12 1/2!!

In reply to Cheese Monkey:

Have a word with the postman. See what he says. He may not know who you are and your name associated with the correct house. This will work if he delivers or sorts out the round for himself.

In reply to Cheese Monkey:

Speaking to the people at No.14 up the road seems like the simple first step and potentially the only one required. It may or may not be the problem but you both stand to gain if you can agree a simple solution between you.

jk

In reply to Trangia:

Many (most?) new builds estates just miss 13 out now - harder to sell!

In reply to Dave Perry:


I don't think I get the same postman or postwoman twice in one week.

In reply to Dave Perry:

I believe we get all of our letters, its various courier firms that are the problem, including Royal Mail. As other people say, its unlikely to be same driver every time

In reply to jkarran:

Agreed I will be down there on Monday and I think they may just have to call us if they get something but I would prefer just to have my stuff arrive at my house!

In reply to Trangia:

Changing house number seems like a good idea actually. Maybe not 14 1/2 but 9663 or something unmistakable ha!

In reply to Cheese Monkey:
I used to live in a flat that had been added to the beginning of the street. Since they couldn't use a number '0' they initially gave the flat number 64 but that meant posties would automatically look next door to 62 at the other end of the street.

The problem with changing (I eventually became "flat over MOT garage") is that it takes a long time for the various automatic address search engines to get updated, so you just find you can't order stuff online as the site won't recognise your new number/name.

In reply to Cheese Monkey:

You could display a sign outside your house saying "this is not 14 something street, it is 14 whatsit street. 14 something street is 200 yards to your right" and the residents of 14 something street could reciprocate. This obviously depends on couriers giving a shit.

In reply to Turdus torquatus:

We have a similar problem in that our little street of 3 houses has been added on a few years ago and hasn't been allotted it's own post code. It seems impossible to persuade the Post Office, or whoever allots postcodes, to give us one of our own so there were quite a few problems at first - especially with software that only asks you for postcode and number. Things seem to have worked themselves through, by using the actual little street name and the name of the people but its does seem amazing that there is such an odd refusal to simply give a separate post code to any new development, which is what you need in your case too.

In reply to Cheese Monkey:

I have been through this but not recently and not in England. Certainly in Scotland it used to be that the Local Authorities were responsible for the naming and numbering of streets.

That didn't make it simple either since the department concerned was full of lazier type of public sector fat bar stewards who were challenged by anything outside their tiny comfort zone of 40 new-builds on a new street. So I made it up, in as logical a way as possible, and while I was there it worked.

Here is link describing the relationship between an English LA and Royal Mail.
http://www.cheshireeast.gov.uk/planning/address_management/royal_mail_postc...

In reply to Cheese Monkey:

It's a pain in the bum that will only be resolved by having good neighbours.
We used to live at 21 crossflatts parade and regularly got mail and packages for 21 crossflatts Street and Grove.
The only thing to do was deliver it between our selves.
We all made complaints at the local sorting office but for some reason we seemed to be the area that got all the temporary and relief staff.
After a few years we got a permanent guy and he was great, he even dropped parcels off on his way home as he passed our house. Always gave him a good tip.

In reply to Cheese Monkey: while at Uni I did some Christmas post deliveries. One area of the local town was three parallel streets with back-to-back houses on them. Some houses had been enlarged by knocking though into the adjacent house, and some by knocking through into the house behind. When delivering on the middle street, you were actually delivering to houses on all three streets, each with its own numbering scheme and missing numbers where adjacent houses had been knocked through. Talk about confusing......

In reply to Cheese Monkey:

I got in touch with the council when we needed a house number. Most databases seemed to update fairly quickly, within a few months.