House Numbering!

We have had a development of about 230 housing "units" as they call them being built since about 2008 and finally the ones facing ours have been completed - one with the owner moved-in.

The stupid things been the numbering of these houses though.

At first, from left to right, they were numbered 139, 137, 135 & 133 which was actually contrary to the rest of the street as that meant 139 had the original house numbered 131 next door and the new 133 was next door to 141.

About three weeks ago, while the finishing-off was still going on, the new houses were renumbered the correct way to the rest of our street but then, all the sub-contractors coming along got totally confused!

Anglian Water sent sub-contractors to sort out a drain - AGAIN - but they dug up the ground next to the newly-corrected 133 but the problem was next to where 133 had been wrongly put before!

Also, carpet fitters came in and fitted carpets to two houses - but they were the wrong ones and electrical contractors were just about to put a security system in on 137 when the main contractor stopped them!

The Anglian Water subbies had to make good the area they'd dug up but the main contractor had to get the tarmac done again because the Anglian Water subbies had dug it all up and didn't have the facilities to replace it - that was down to another Anglian Water sub-contractor who was supposed to come later!

The new owner of the house directly opposite had organised SKY to fit a dish etcetera - but it was organised when her house had been renumbered 133, so when SKY turned she had to run down and stop them drilling holes in house up the road.

Some time on Thursday-last, unnoticed by us, the new houses were all renumbered again and it looks as if that's how they'll stay so 139 (opposite us) has 131 to the left again and 133 has 141 next door!

The posties will go bananas but I'm wondering now about the services, like Gas, Water, Telephone & Broadband and Electricity.

The Gas & Electric meters were all looked at before the numbers got switched back!! stevmk2

Re: House Numbering!

I wonder when house numbering became commonplace? I've had no luck in tracing the history of my house (the deeds don't say much) and when I looked up the old postal directories, the village inhabitants were listed simply as for example, J. Smith, wheelwright, The village.

Presumably, the postie knew everyone and there probably was only one wheelwright in the village. The only exceptions were the 'big house' and the surrounding farms which had names.

Re: House Numbering!

And isn't it strange that house numbering usually skipped the number 13?

Re: House Numbering!

Even stranger that here the car registration, which always includes the last two digits of the year, also skipped 13 by changing it to 131 or 132. Even the government is superstitious it seems! How silly is that!

Re: House Numbering!

I think my local council has a standard that all streets are numbered east to west or north to south and that odds are on the left evens on the right. The only problem is older streets before this rule applied.

Re: House Numbering!

My partner works for a Pakistani owned firm who apparently consider the no 4 very unlucky..

So his office is 3..and the next office is 3A..

I wonder where these superstitions came from..

The Chinese consider the no 8 very lucky..

Re: House Numbering!

Our street is very strange.

I live at 8 Southview Terrace, but there is also a 8 Southview Rd. which Southview Rd is 2 mins. away from my House, but also around the corner is 8 Southview Close. Very often our post goes to Southview Rd and theirs comes to us, so we have to exchange. On the righthand side of our houses, they insist they do not have numbers only names, but the lefthand side houses have numbers and names.

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My first house was no. 13 and it was lucky enough.

Re: House Numbering!

The house I lived in before was number 81. The house next door was 77. I can only assume the builders thought that there would be another house inbetween?

Re: House Numbering!

When I was a student, I used to work as a temp postie at Christmas. The round that I hated was on a large council estate where houses were built round circular greens and were numbered consecutively so 1, 2 ... were opposite 98, 99... Residents from the high numbers would pester you to see if there was mail for them and I got tired of explaining that the mail was organised low numbers first. They would watch as I walked round and then if there wasn't anything for them they would moan that it was my fault for wasting their time.