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When making medical first responder and fire calls as a VFD guy, I have often found it difficult to immediately find the right house because they are poorly marked as to the actual address. The mailbox with the correct number is closer to different house, or it's across the street, or half the numbers are gone, or there are no numbers at all, or there is more than one house at the same address and none of them are marked, or the street or road is not even identified, never mind the houses. GPS gizmos are helpful, but not unusual for them to be wrong. I have awakened the wrong people at 3 a.m. on several occasions asking for a particular address (happily they did not shoot at me for doing so). This is always a lot of fun, especially if the call was for "patient not responding and just stopped breathing." Very seldom was there anyone outside waiting on us to direct us to the right house.

I'm sure all of the EMS/Fire/Cop people here have had many similar experiences.

Our VFD sells reflective address signs, mostly at our annual fundraiser. Not enough people buy them.

Anyway, a small but significant security and safety step you can take is to make sure that when you call the cavalry, they can find your house. (Also when you make that 911 call, tell the dispatcher your gate code. )

Here's another good reason to make sure your HOUSE, not just the curb or the driveway, is CLEARLY MARKED:

Contractor Guts Wrong House

I looked at this on Google Maps, and you can see why the contractor was easily misled. The right house to be gutted was at 2700 Park Boulevard Road, and it sits on the corner. The wrong house, 2736 Forest Park Blvd, also sits on the corner, same side of the street but at the other end of the block. Painted on the curb right in front of the wrong house, in big easily read capital letters, is "2700 FOREST PARK BOULEVARD" - which is meant to designate the block, not the house. There's already a green street sign there designating the block number as well, so it would be easy to assume the curb painting is for the house.

On the house itself (which is set back from the curb quite a bit), there are much smaller dark numerals 2736 over the entryway. Both houses were unoccupied, and the contractor was told there were no keys, just kick in the front door. And he did. And took out all the sinks, plumbing, fixtures, furniture, cabinets...the works. (He as promised to make it good to the owners, even offered to buy the house from them.)

And the contractor did this in daylight, I'm guessing. Imagine if when the real 2700 was occupied and they called the po-po for an armed intruder some dark night, it would be real easy for the cops to be misled as well, with unfortunate results. Or EMS responding to a heart attack, and no one answers the door.

End of lesson. Except for "mark your house well."

Great reminder.

You want to make sure your house is clearly identifiable, just in case these guys are looking for your neighbors:

https://www.facebook.com/LakeCountySO/v ... 356828157/

My house and curb are clearly marked, but my problem is with the idiots who assigned house numbers. The house next door is 18xx, then the next one (mine) is the beginning of the, wait for it..........................900 block! Almost every delivery vehicle coming from the east misses us and has to back up, or turn around. The one time we called an ambulance, they too went wizzing by and had to turn around. Great planning by the city

Great post. I live out in the County, on the corner of a FM road and a residential circle. My house is the only one, that adjoins the circle, with the address being the FM road. My neighbor's mailbox is closer to my house than my own, and I have had several people come to my house looking for the neighbor. I have my mailbox marked with large reflective lettering, my house with 6" reflective lettering and the number on the fence in 12" lettering.
As a former LEO, I know how difficult it can be to see addresses at night, even with alley lights, if trees or shrubbery, have grown up over the number, or it is only painted on the curb and the paint has faded.

Most cities have ordinances, that require addresses to be a certain size, and be visible from a certain distance, but they are rarely enforced. For those who live outside the city limits, it is even more imperative to have the address, as prominent as possible. Emergency vehicles with flashing lights, often distort things at night, and even more so, if it hard to read in the first place. Houses in the country are typically further away from the road, so addresses on the house are almost impossible to see.

Bottom line, your local mail carrier may know where you live because he/she is there everyday, but FD/EMS/LEO may not be able to find you when time is of the essence.

Thank you for the suggestion. My house is poorly marked twice. Both non-reflective with raised brown brass on brown brass backgrounds, looks nice, but not very helpful to Amazon Now when I ordered from them.

Hadn't thought about emergency first responders not finding us.

Oh, and I forgot: When you put your numbers out by the road on your mailbox or post or whatever -- make sure they can be read when driving either direction on the road. We have several roads around here where the numbers are on only one side of each mailbox, which is great for the mail-carrier since he drives the same direction everyday. Not so good if the emergency responder is coming from the other direction or accidently goes too far and has to come back.

One after-midnight I responded in my POV to a medical emergency where the patient was reported as not responding or breathing, possible heart-attack. I was closest to the address in a rural area, so I got to the general area first, but there were no numbers along the road, and worse, there were a couple of driveways leading off the road that obviously had several houses on each. I stopped at the closest house but no one home.

Then out of the darkness I see this young guy come walking down the side of the road. He is wearing blue jeans. Only. No shirt, no shoes. Hair mussed up, skinny to point of emaciation, badly needs a shave, bleary-eyed. Nearest house in the direction he came from was at least quarter mile away. And it's about 3 a.m. No way in normal circumstances I would have even slowed down, but I had a mission and every mission has risks...so rolled down the window a bit, drove up next to him, asked him about the address I was looking for and why. He pointed out the right driveway, said last house on the right, thanked him, and off I went. He was correct too.

I prefer to read nice visible reflective signs tho. :)

Very good point. My previous house was marked both on the front and back visibly but was faced a common area. Across the street the house numbers were significantly different because of 5 houses facing the common area. I had enough of late pizza deliveries and sat through a few homeowners' association meetings to ensure there was a sign put up at a height above a parked car listing the houses in the common area. It helped.

My house and mail box are marked, but the street signs disappear regularly. Narrow streets, no curbs, and careless drivers that run the street signs down when dragging long trailers around the corners makes the situation even worse. Even the ends of the culverts are caved in. Some of the problem is also vandals stealing or defacing the signs.
My daughter lives on a street that has no street sign (almost 2 years). If you don't know the street is there you'll go right by it. If I come from the west at night I have trouble seeing the street.
The only place in town that has curbs is the town square.
If you follow a GPS to my address you'll end up next door! We've had parcels delivered by Fed Ex to our neighbors house. Guess they can't read the numbers or don't look.
All the mail boxes are on the same side of the street. Not many options available.

ELB wrote:When making medical first responder and fire calls as a VFD guy, I have often found it difficult to immediately find the right house because they are poorly marked as to the actual address. The mailbox with the correct number is closer to different house, or it's across the street, or half the numbers are gone, or there are no numbers at all, or there is more than one house at the same address and none of them are marked, or the street or road is not even identified, never mind the houses. GPS gizmos are helpful, but not unusual for them to be wrong. I have awakened the wrong people at 3 a.m. on several occasions asking for a particular address (happily they did not shoot at me for doing so). This is always a lot of fun, especially if the call was for "patient not responding and just stopped breathing." Very seldom was there anyone outside waiting on us to direct us to the right house.

I'm sure all of the EMS/Fire/Cop people here have had many similar experiences.

Our VFD sells reflective address signs, mostly at our annual fundraiser. Not enough people buy them.

Anyway, a small but significant security and safety step you can take is to make sure that when you call the cavalry, they can find your house. (Also when you make that 911 call, tell the dispatcher your gate code. )

Here's another good reason to make sure your HOUSE, not just the curb or the driveway, is CLEARLY MARKED:

Contractor Guts Wrong House

I looked at this on Google Maps, and you can see why the contractor was easily misled. The right house to be gutted was at 2700 Park Boulevard Road, and it sits on the corner. The wrong house, 2736 Forest Park Blvd, also sits on the corner, same side of the street but at the other end of the block. Painted on the curb right in front of the wrong house, in big easily read capital letters, is "2700 FOREST PARK BOULEVARD" - which is meant to designate the block, not the house. There's already a green street sign there designating the block number as well, so it would be easy to assume the curb painting is for the house.

On the house itself (which is set back from the curb quite a bit), there are much smaller dark numerals 2736 over the entryway. Both houses were unoccupied, and the contractor was told there were no keys, just kick in the front door. And he did. And took out all the sinks, plumbing, fixtures, furniture, cabinets...the works. (He as promised to make it good to the owners, even offered to buy the house from them.)

And the contractor did this in daylight, I'm guessing. Imagine if when the real 2700 was occupied and they called the po-po for an armed intruder some dark night, it would be real easy for the cops to be misled as well, with unfortunate results. Or EMS responding to a heart attack, and no one answers the door.

End of lesson. Except for "mark your house well."

This is one of the least expensive and most important things you can do to help ensure that an emergency response to your home is not needlessly delayed by confusion over location. When life is at stake, every second counts.

AndyC wrote:Excellent advice - particularly about the "visible from both directions". When I buy a house, I'll make sure that's done.

r
There's also no rule that says the address must be posted in only one spot. Posting on the mailbox (front or both sides), the curb, and on the house in reflective numbers is a great idea when there's any doubt that the signage in one area could be blocked or missed under any conditions (parked cars, bad weather, etc.).

My house NUMBER is clearly marked. Unfortunately, in my little neighborhood, the house numbers repeat on streets with somewhat similar names. One afternoon, about 2 years ago I'm sitting in my office (upstairs) and hear from the first floor "Hello! <city name> Police!". An officer had entered my house via an unlocked patio door (already used this incident to correct WifeGBiv's bad habit). I'm standing back from the top of the stairs at low ready until my wife can verify that the voice is a uniformed officer and there is a marked squad down the street.

The officer was responding to a burglar alarm call. Turns out that he had the right house number but the wrong street name.

Could have been quite the tragedy.

Same here, people not putting their address where it could be seen from the street, the city I worked for had a ordinance that stated the house numbers had to be 4" tall and or visible from the street, unfortunately few actually did as required. What always amazed me was we would be rolling slowly down the street looking for the address and there would be somebody standing in the front of the house watching us roll past and never make any motion that their house was the one that called the emergency in!

Excaliber wrote:...There's also no rule that says the address must be posted in only one spot. Posting on the mailbox (front or both sides), the curb, and on the house in reflective numbers is a great idea when there's any doubt that the signage in one area could be blocked or missed under any conditions (parked cars, bad weather, etc.).

Yes!