Can a single family home have multiple addresses?

[HawkPDX]

Beautifully put… glad I found a reasonable response. 😂

[micky]

Several years ago a high-ranking city employee somewhere in the USA had her ragular mailing addrees and since she lived on the corner, she had another address on that street. This house didn't have two driveways or two electric meters, just two doors. (And I'm not positive you'd need two doors.)

It turned out she was doing something illegal, using her city job to do it, and that's why she used a different address. She resigned and got a 3-year suspended sentence, but still died in her 50's only 8 years later. I got tired of googling but I think that means the city got back the money she'd stolen, or she would have gotten prison.

Though it's usually expressed that the post office assigns addresses, I suspect if you put up a street number on your property that didn't duplicate another property's number and wwas greater than what was on one side of you and less than the other side, if mail arrived at the post office with that address, they'd deliver it. Just like if there were an empty lot and someone built a house on it. The mailman's job is to deliver the mail, not to verify that house numbers went through some official process to be approved.

I once lived on the 5th floor and would run up the steps, but I'd lose track of what floor I was on. I made paper labels for floors 4 and 5 and taped them to the riser just before that floor. Within 3 months, permanent metal floor numbers had been attached to the wall in the stairwell. By the landlord I suppose.

Then I moved to another building, did the same thing, and the same thing happened. Much easier than whining to a landlord, "Pleasssse put floor numbers in the stairwell".

Actually my numbers were better because you could see them 7 feet before you got to the floor, but his were good enough.

[Jim Joyce]

I don't fully know how it works, but back in the 80's I lived in a house on a corner. The house only had a single entrance on Front St., but according to the address, the house number and the street name referred to the side street. We tried to get it corrected, but we were unable to. The regular postal carrier wasn't confused, but every time a substitute came down the street he would just skip our house.

[micky]

Well, in a way that'z a good thing.

You're story reminds me that when I was a mailman for part of a summer, I worked at different routes, depending on who had the day off, and each one had an array of pigeonholes to sort the mail into, and they were labeled by address. So at least during sorting I wouldn't have known where to put a letter whose number didn't match one of the pigeonholes.

I don't think I ever got anything whose address wasn't listed there.

It wasn't a good job because they didn't tell me right away what day other than Sunday I would get off, and worse, they didnt' tell me until the night before whether I was supposed to come in at 6 or at 10. If it was at 6 I didn't like to go out the night before and if it was at 10, I didn't want to go out that night. On my day off I went back to a road construction site I had been too and got hired at 50% more money.

I called into the post office and said something, but later in the summer I got a letter saying if I didnt show up, I'd be fired for "Abandonment of Post"! So I went in and resigned, and he sent me to the timekeeper who said, Oh, you shouldn't have done that. You should have told me and I'd take you off the clock and then put you back on when you wanted to come back. It was too late now, and my construction job had ended, but there were only 2 more weeks left in the summer so it iddn't matter much.

[micky]

When I ushered at the Lyric Opera House in Chicago, once in a while a couple showed up who bought tickets late and didn't get seats together. I would put them together anyhow and when the other people showed up, I'd just arrange them so that it all worked out. This only happened 2 or

3 times, but it was amazing that no one ever said "But my tickets show I'm supposed to sit there". I was the usher and people are taught to respect authority! I didn't have a uniform or anything.

I was a volunteer, so it's a little different from violating the rules of the post office.

[Marilyn Manson]

My daughter lives in an old neighborhood in a medium sized city. Lot's of homes from the early 1900's. Her address is 92. The house on the right is 90. That's normal. The house on the left is 92 1/2. The next house is 94.

It must have been a double lot at some point with 92 assigned to the lot, so with 94 taken, 92 1/2 was the only option. Mail is usually OK, but they are always walking packages back and forth to each other's house.

If you drive around the neighborhood, you'll see more than a few "1/2" addresses. The strange part is that the XX and XX 1/2 houses are very close to the same vintage. It's not like someone owned a 1925 house on a double lot and sold half the lot in 60's. The "1/2" address houses are also from the early 1900's.

I should check out the city's tax portal and see if I can see a trend.

[Marilyn Manson]

My address is 504 Some Street

Some Street ends (T's) at Another Ave

At least once a month, for 35+ years, I get a single piece of mail for 504 Another Ave.

I just clip it to the mailbox and the next day it magically disappears.

[Jim Joyce]

As a kid, we spent some summers in Bismarck, ND. Several houses on our street had basement apartments and they were designated by "1/2". I've also seen where a small guest house had it's own "1/2" house number, but I don't think that's as common.

[micky]

This is similar. I lived my first 10 years in New Castle, Pennsylvania.

This was before one could dial a long distance number, the operator had to conect you, and at least once a year we'd get a phone call for someone in New castle Delaware. We would explain to the operator that Delaware must have been intended.

40 years later and 350 miles away in Baltimore I'm at a party at someone's home, sitting back to back with someone, and I hear her say that she's from New Castle, Pa.

I turn around and say, Hey, I'm from New Csstle, Pa. and she says "You must mean New Castle Delaware."

"I know where I'm from!"

That's not the kind of mistake anyone makes.

Turns out she was about 6 years older than I, had dated my brother and two of my cousins.

[micky]

Very strange.

The only place I've come across 1/2 addresses were in the mill town part of Bethlehem Pa. across from the steel plant, where the alleys had buildings with addresses. I dont' know what stret names were used.

And I think Indiapolis had a few in an older part of twon.

[gfretwell]

It just sounds like poor platting in the beginning. Our houses are 10 numbers apart (5 addresses) in 100 feet of street front. Addresses are originally established in the county plat book when they lay out the area. I can see some places built before universal platting could get screwed up tho. They must have understood the need when they set up the universal address system here because each physical address only covers about 10 feet in the plat.

[Marilyn Manson]

A few years ago I contacted Airbnb customer service to point out an error on their website.

I was looking for a place to stay in Portland, Oregon. I found lots of places to stay in the city and on the outskirts. On the listings page I saw a link for "Things to do in Portland". I clicked that link and read about lobster fishing, whale watching and lighthouses galore.

You know, all the things you can do if you want to drive 3200 miles to Portland, Maine.

[Anonymous]

in the 1950s my parents rented in Akron OH where the smaller house behind ours was 414 1/2, and later I rented a mobile home behind a SFH in Rantoul IL that was 337 1/2.

The Akron houses are still there, but the mobile is gone now.

Re the 92 1/2 , I wonder if their were more than 10 homes on the block, so the "1/2" was used to make them fit between 90 and 99 ??

[Wade Garrett]

When I bought my house, it was on a short street that dead ended into a very large wooded area. Some years later, a developer bought that land and put in a big subdivision that caused my street to get extended into it. And then the county issued all new house numbers so I had to deal with a new one.

One PIA was I worked from home and used the address as my business address so had to make a lot of changes, This was before computers so I had a lot of business stationery I had to scrap.

If that wasn't bad enough, a few year later the post office changed my zip code (scrap, scrap, scrap) and later, the telephone area code was also changed-- more scrap, plus mailing out notifications to clients, etc.

[Ed Pawlowski]

I have no idea how our houses are numbered. Starting with the first house, it goes 10806, 10, 14. There is 12' between houses so no chance of subbing for another house in the future. The 06 house is next to a swale that will never be built on though there is space but what happened to 2 and 4? Why skip the 08, 12, etc?

[Ralph Mowery]

Sort of like a friend lives on Bill Circle, to get to that you have to go about 1/4 of a mile down Bill Road. He is always getting packages delivered to the house on the Road instead of his Circle.

[Scott Lurndal]

[Wade Garrett]

What about the rednecks in Atlanta where there's 70+ streets with Peachtree in the name...

[micky]

My friend Paul writes me that In NY there is at least one building on the corner of 42nd street and Madison Ave that has both a 42nd st and Madison Ave address.

No hanky-panky afaik like the example I had given.

[micky]

Please read today's mail. You need new underwear because they are changing your sex.