Going Postal, has anyone else experienced this?

[Kirk]

The addresses were assigned by the 911 folks,

I suspect that anywhere with a 911 system does something of that sort since 911 will not work if they don't know the address.

As I said. since I could NOT renew on my b-Day.. I got the extra day WHen I did renew.

Nothing like waiting for the last minute to do it! In TX you can renew anytime in the 90 days ending on your birthday. You can be ticketed on the day after, although the only situation for that to happen would be if you were stopped for some other reason, since an officer would have no way to know your license was expired by just seeing you go past.

 

[Skookum]

Glad you got it sorted.

We were the lucky first owners of a newly subdivided lot with a new home build and we traveled in circles and through multiple hoops to get the USPS to recognize we were a new, unique address. It actually takes a while for a new address to appear in everyone's "system", we discovered, including Google Maps. It took almost a year for the county to figure out that the also-subdivided land next door was not ours, and so please stop sending us the property tax bill for that

 

[John From Detroit]

I suspect that anywhere with a 911 system does something of that sort since 911 will not work if they don't know the address.

Nothing like waiting for the last minute to do it! In TX you can renew anytime in the 90 days ending on your birthday. You can be ticketed on the day after, although the only situation for that to happen would be if you were stopped for some other reason, since an officer would have no way to know your license was expired by just seeing you go past.

There were two reasons to wait till the last minute.
But as for 9-1-1 There are basically 3 types of 9-1-1 systems here in the USA.
E-9-1-1 (Enhanced) will always know where you are calling from.. Home. the site of a fatal accident on I 80.. Texas.. If the call goes to an E-9-1-1 center they know within a few yards your latitude, longitude and most likely your altitude as well (not always on the last) One way is GPS. but that's not the only way. (GPS gives altitude).
Registered 9-1-1 is great if you are at home. for they know where you live. But if you are at Big Bob's Big Boy... Well. then see E-9-1-

"Oh we can not afford to give our 9-1-1 operators the tools they need to do the job and to track down harassing phone calls like Mr. Wee-Wee man (NO I WILL NOT TELL YOU ABOUT HIM BUT I'm sure he does not even have a dog)... 9-1-1 The poor operator has to ask where you are for he or she has NOTHIGN even remotely helpful on his or her screen.. NOT even (In many cases) your phone number. (Yup. I described the center where *I* Worked)

 

[Ray-IN]

I have a neighbor directly across a county road, my address is 3 digits higher than his, but his mailbox was last in line on the same pedestal, so I switched them so his and my mailboxs were sequential. The postmaster went ballistic and said it messed up the entire route. I'm still puzzled by that remark since I have a 4x4 post near my driveway with the correct street address numbers.
The real kickers is, state police and local county sheriff use my big red RV garage as a ground marker for their MJ flights every fall when spotting marijuana fields. It's not like no-one know where I live.

 

[PJ Stough]

Changing the order of mailboxes in a group does mess up the route a little, but very little. All the Postmaster has to do is switch the order of the mailboxes on a form and submit it to upper management. It may take a week or so for the change to be implemented. Just for ease of delivery, the Postmaster should have had the boxes in numerical order to begin with.

 

[Ex-Calif]

I have a neighbor directly across a county road, my address is 3 digits higher than his, but his mailbox was last in line on the same pedestal, so I switched them so his and my mailboxs were sequential. The postmaster went ballistic and said it messed up the entire route. I'm still puzzled by that remark since I have a 4x4 post near my driveway with the correct street address numbers.

When I moved on my property this year I had to apply for and get verification for my 911 address and my driveway permit. I have a 300 foot frontage and actually have 2 gates. One 10 foot and one 16 foot.

There was an old post with no box on it near where the neighbor across the streets was. This was about 100 feet past my second gateway and would have made collecting the mail a PITA.

I had been working on the property for a while and one day I stopped in the post office to talk about changing from a PO box to a mail box at the address and moving the post. The man at the counter said something like, "Seems fine but you should talk to your carrier."

I talked to the carrier about where I want to put the post (basically where I drive past and can collect the mail at will) and she was, "That seems fine to me!"

Around here the carrier's word carries a lot of weight.

Someone mentioned Japan. That system was crazy basically we live at 3-5-12 Meguro. Meguro was the town, 3 was the section, 5 was the block and 12 was the house. But the numbering was "around" the block - so if there were 4 streets making up your block the numbering would be sequential around the block on your side of the street.

We went to a town safety training which was fun and were basically told that if we had an emergency we should fax the fire department a map of our address. Uhh... Yeah. My house is on fire and I'm gonna stop to send a fax - LOL...

 

[Jeff in Ferndale Wa]

When I first moved to Alaska the addresses were like "Mile Post 95 Richardson Hwy".

That told the mail carrier your house was between Mile Post 95 and Mile Post 96. Everyone put their last name on the mail box so the mail carrier just looked for your last name on the box. Of course sometimes your mail box was the ONLY one between two mile posts.

I worked at a cannery in a small fishing village in Alaska for 35 + years.
There are no street addresses there, everyone has a PO Box. If something needs to be delivered via UPS or Fed EX you just make up a street name. I often used 16 Cannery Row.
It didn't matter, UPS and Fed Ex were picked up at the gravel airport by the same guy that picks up the mail. It was still this way when I left there three years ago.
If you called 911 it would be landmarks or someone's house. "We need help at John's house, just past the bridge" . Or "Out by the head of the lagoon near Bob's house" ETC

 

[HappyWanderer]

When I started as an emergency dispatcher, in the days before 911, no one used house numbers. It took me a while to understand where Sands Corner or Pine Tree Hill were, because there were no streets with those names.

It became routine to ask what color the house was, or identify a landmark to find the people. It’s a lost skill. The kids dispatching these days are completely lost without their computer screens.

 

[Larry N.]

I grew up in a small town where the streets had no names (I think that's a song) we just named the houses I think they went by the original owners "the Mills house" "the old Kane house" "The Eads house".

25 years ago we moved in to our new house in this new neighborhood where we gradually knew everyone as they moved in. While the houses all have street addresses, I don't know them, but with all of the turnover in house owners over these 25 years I still refer to the various houses by their original owners, even though the ownership may have changed three or more times (only 5 of the 26 are still original owners).

So that's often handy, though most of the newer folks don't recognize those designations, but it helps me (and a few others) keep track of who's where.

 

[RRR]

The fact that the OP was able to get the Post Office to pick up the phone is amazing. My local office, if I called first thing in the morning, it would ring till someone pried the phone from my cold, dead hand and hung the phone up.

 

[PJ Stough]

The fact that the OP was able to get the Post Office to pick up the phone is amazing. My local office, if I called first thing in the morning, it would ring till someone pried the phone from my cold, dead hand and hung the phone up.

Sometimes it is not all that easy even to get a local number for the post office.

 

[Gregg W]

The fact that the OP was able to get the Post Office to pick up the phone is amazing. My local office, if I called first thing in the morning, it would ring till someone pried the phone from my cold, dead hand and hung the phone up.

It rang for quite awhile before someone picked up.

Speaker phone is a great feature. I dial the number, turn on the speaker, set the phone down and let it ring while I do other stuff..