A New Low In Delivery Practice?

[Java Jive]

I am still using the delivery arrangements I found on purchasing the property. Having no letter box, post is delivered to a box on the gatepost, and small parcels can be put in an old just about weatherproof picnic box also on mounted on the gatepost.

I ordered something via Amazon earliear this week, and the day before yesterday noted that it had reached the nearest city, but that delivery was still scheduled for Monday. Also the day before yesterday, I went down to the local tip with some junk, and called in at the local shop on the way back. Yesterday, having slept badly, I fell asleep during the morning.

Yesterday afternoon, I noticed that the shed door was banging in the wind, which was particularly surprising, because I keep it locked. When I went out to investigate, I found that the bolt retainer had been ripped off the doorframe, and found my delivery from Amazon inside the shed, which, possibly thanks to this damage, possibly not, was now awash.

I have had some pretty bad experiences with deliveries at times, which have included finding stuff under bushes or hedgrerows (twice), under a caravan (once), and even in the dustbin (twice), having stuff lobbed over the back wall (lost count), but I think this is the first case of intentional damage to property that I have encountered.

It was UPS, in case you're wondering.

[Archibald]

I found Parcelforce were fairly useless. They left a package in the public alleyway leading to the rear of my property once.

Needless to say it didn't stay too long!

The number of "drops" some delivery drivers are expected to make seems farcicle though. It can't be easy.

I wouldn't want the job for any money!

AB

[Archibald]

I'm sure you are correct. After my experience of what I considered was their total ineptitude, I specifically avoided any dealers that used them. I did wonder at the time how they could remain in buisiness dropping parcels in an alley used by the entire street. No attempt was made to even find the rear of my property where it could be dropped behind the gate.

As I get most stuff delivered to work now, it does not seem to matter too much who delivers. The problems arise when I am not home to receive the goods.

AB

[charles]

here Parcelforce are excellent. If there's no-one home, they take it to the local Post Office, from which I can collect it.

[Brian Gaff]

Though this may well be one of the underlying cause it does not excuse criminal damage or abusive behaviour in my view.

Brian

[meow2222]

Hope you reported it to the police. Nothing will happen otherwise

NT

[Andrew Gabriel]

Well, I'd have to say UPS is fine when delivering to me, but they do deliver something quite often. When it's a new driver, I have sometimes had a phone call to ask where I am, as none of the houses have numbers.

CityLink are the ones who can't be arsed. Last time, I actually saw the van drive past without stopping, and the goods were returned to the depot as 'invalid address'. The address label was perfectly correct when I went to collect it.

[tony sayer]

In article , Andrew Gabriel scribeth thus

Might I ask why they don't have numbers?. Do they have names instead?..

[Andrew Gabriel]

Yes. I've no idea why. The elderly woman who lived next door in the same house she was born in would probably have known, but I didn't ask her in time, unfortunately.

[Bob Eager]

Much of our town had names rather than numbers for years. Our house (the first in the road) has the name of the road as its name! Our old house (round the corner from here) had a name too. The houses were built between 1900 and 1930, and all had names. Some areas had names that were related (we looked at buying "The Oaks", next to "The Beeches" and "The Elms", elsewhere in the town). Looking around, mots houses up to the

1930s have names.

In 1938 the council decided to number the roads in the conventional fashion.

Caused a great deal of confusion, I am sure, for the people who lived at that time in the house next to our old one. It was the fifth plot (but the fourth house, as we had a double plot and a big garden) in the road (on that side) and assumed the default name "Five" (or the owner was just bloody minded). After the re-numbering, it became 7, being the fourth house on the odd numbered side, and our house became 5.

The guy who biught that house from us built another on the spare plot, so now it goes 1,3,5A,5,7...

[Bill]

In message , Bob Eager writes

I can understand that. I live at No8 on a fairly large plot and either side of me are No6 and No12 When they numbered them someone must have assumed that there would be a 2nd one on our plot and there never was. The house also has a name, being 1930s vintage, but No12 never has as it was a later addition anyway. They now go up to about No40. Confused? Yes.

[Dave Liquorice]

UPS is one of the better one here as well.

New driver? Same driver here for as long as I can remember, so probably

10 years or more.

It's certainly not a job I would like in an urban area but a nice low population rural one might be quite pleasant. Two or three drops in/around one village, 15 min drive to the next...

Think I'd take a copy of the PAF entry and point out that it's not an "invalid address" and put in a claim for return mileage and time...

[Bob Eager]

I forgot to mention that by the time the council renumbered, the owner of our current house (at the time) had converted the previous chauffeur's quarters to a shop. That was numbered 43, and the main front door 45.

Years later (1960s) the door to 43 was blocked up, the wall between the shop and the driveway 'through' the house (think old pub sort of thing) was removed, and 43 ceased to exist. The new combined space is now our living room.

So this road goes 39,41,45,47...

[Martin Brown]

I recall a couple of years ago when our village was cut off by snowdrifts the daily update said "we called but you were out".

This was more than a little surprising since we were in and could not go out as the roads were impassable for three days due to drifting.

[Martin Brown]

Yes. And you also find that just about every village will have a Rose/Pear/Oak/Apple/Garden Cottage and a Home/Glebe/Manor/Hill Farm.

The hard part is having no street name at all - plenty of delivery webpages insist on one. I put in "No street name" or "No-name street".

This also makes some Barclaycard random "security" questions very hard to answer indeed. They really didn't like "A19" as an answer to name a road that connects to your street. But their best one was name a hotel where you stayed in "Chester" last year. My answer was that we hadn't.

The "correct" answer was "Lumley Castle" in Durham which came up on their system as "Chester" (le Street) an entirely different place!

[PeterC]

In my road the house next to me is 59 then the next one is 65 to allow for the large gap inbetween and possible new houses. The large 'gap' is the West Coast Main Line - so much for the 'permanent' way!

I was once looking for a place in a road in SE London. I was on a motorbike, so a bit easier to look than being in a car. I was getting close when the numbers suddenly jumped by quite a lot. Eventually I found the place and the owners explained that two streets had been knocked into one, the streets were still separately named but there were no nameplates at the join.

[dennis]

Sometimes the houses are just pulled down or blown up.

Maybe a mass murderer lived there.

I know of one street where the numbers go something like 1, 2, 5, 9, 4,

10, 11 up to 37 and there is a sign pointing up the road that says something like xxxx street 1 - 34, 36, 37, 39.

I have no idea where no 39 is, I looked for it once but never did find it.

[Jonathan]

I used to live in a terraced street in London. It had no 13 but three

1's - 1A 1B 1C. 1A was actually built later than the rest of the terrace.

Jonathan

[SteveW]

Here they do the same - even if someone is in! Their opening hours during the week are very limited and I am at work, miles away then. That leaves only Saturday morning (they are shut in the afternoon), so I either have to get up very early, when I desperately need a lie-in or go after the kids' swimming lessons, meaning that I can't park anywhere and am very much against the clock. They did have customer parking in the depot, but on of their staff was hit by a reversing vehicle, so they banned all customers from driving into the depot and using the car-parking spaces provided for them!

SteveW

[Bill]

Strangely enough the previous owner of mine did strip it with a view to demolishing it and building two. He changed his mind and bodged it back together again.

But no mass murders, as far as I know............ yet.