No - not because you moved, but the post office decided to reassign your current number.
Zip + 4 doesn’t count either.
This happened to my parents who live in Florida. Their area was reassigned about 10 or so years ago. I think their old number was 32661 and it became 34461.
Is this common?
My zip didn’t change but three years ago, a lot of the surrounding towns got new zip codes. The change was from 317 zips to either 321 or 398 zips. The biggest problem I encountered was making sure all those zip codes were changed in the data base at work. Though I didn’t have to physically make the changes myself, I supervise those who do so I really had to stay on top of it due to the large number of mailouts (newsletters, annual reports and such) we do several times a year. It took a month to make all the changes as in some areas one side of the road would still be 317 but the other side might be 321 or 398. The USPS did every thing it could to make that a living hell.
When I lived in Southampton, the Post Office decided to rework the postcodes(the UK equivalent of zip codes) for the whole area, to make space in the system for new properties and increase the precision of codes for existing ones. Mine changed from SO5 3LQ to SO15 3LQ
The same sort of thing happens/happened with telephone numbers and dialling codes - several times.
No, but I’ve had my mailing address changed one digit to the right (i.e.: RFD #6 became RFD #7).
Not ZIP codes, but street numbers were adjusted in my neighborhood not long ago. It was discovered that when the house numbers were handed out, no provision had been made for empty lots inbetween – the numbers had been assigned somewhat haphazardly. So when the empty lots became houses, they were forced to use either A and B or 1/2, which didn’t set well with the County’s newly-appointed “Addressing Specialist”. He straightened everything out, but that required some changes like 3826 became 3828. Also, some people who were on a corner, and had been giving their addresses on one street, were told they had the wrong street and their entire street name & number was changed.
I guess a ZIP code change would have been easier.
My parents between 1973 and sometime in the mid-80’s when I was old enough to write my own addresses on thank you notes and remember what it was (born 1974) had their address change significantly, while the house stayed put. Actually, at least one of the changes were made in about 1976- because my parents sent out “We have a new baby- and a new address” announcements when my brother was born.
Overall, the house number changed from 3 to 4 digits, the community name shifted from the name of the nearest big city to the name of the suburb they lived in, and the zip code changed.
When I lived in Lancaster the ZIP code changed from 93534 to 93536. We also lost the ability to make local calls with only five digits. (On the other hand, calling Palmdale was no longer long-distance.)
Yeah - ours changed 12-13 years ago. The area was getting very densely populated and the post office decided to split it into two.
Couple years before that, the town I’d live in in NC got changed from a single zip to several ones.
So it’s not too uncommon.
In the late 60’s the address of the house my family lived in changed from RFD 317, Spanaway, WA 98385 to 121XX 28th Ave. E, Tacoma, WA 98445. Plus at the time the road we lived on was called Cedar Street and it changed at the same time. I remember a few neighbors resisted the change till the Postal Service quit delivering their mail.
The XX is the last 2 numbers of the address, I don’t know who lives there now and I didn’t want to give out the whole address.
Yes. Mine changed just a short while ago - it went from 60067 to 60074.
I’ve never heard of postal codes alone changing in existing urban or suburban Canada. There has been some elimination of duplicate street-names in Toronto, as part of the aftermath of the merger of municipal governments (and their corresponding postal addresses). In the rural areas, and in areas that are experiencing new suburbs, I suspect that there are many new postal codes.
Nope. We have had our area code switched around on us (which led one of my friends into the interesting situation of being in a different area code than the people next door to him!)
Area code changes, and address changes, but not a zip code change. I think my parent’s area code changed at least twice, 617 - 508 - 978
People look at you funny when you tell them your address changed from 3 Paradise Rd to 4 Paradise Rd… the first question is always, “You moved across the street?”.
They also don’t understand the reply. “Nope, didn’t move, we got renumbered.”
This was apparently in response to Enhanced 911 coming on line in the home town, apparently as you head away from the “main road”, the odd numbers need to be on the right.
When I lived in Canada, we had our postal code and our entire address changed, except for the name of the towns we lived in. It was probably around 10-12 years ago, now. The powers that be decided to (re)number all of our roads (many had no number assigned to them previously). It was a smart move. If I remember correctly, it all had something to do with us getting 911 service.
I remember learning my home address at about age 4 or 5:
2345 Cherryhurst
Houston 6, Texas
Yep. I’m a pre-Zipcoder. Took me a while to get used to:
2345 Cherryhurst
Houston, TX 77006
Ghods, I feel old all of a sudden…
My parent’s street number, area code, phone number, and zip code have all changed in the 45 years they’ve lived in their town. I can still remember what it was when I was 6 years old.
Holland and Belgium have large number of enclaves/exclaves, especially in the Baarle area, where bits of Holland are entirely inside Belgium and vice versa, including some cases where bits of one country are inside a bit of the other country which is in turn inside the first one. In some cases, the borders actually run through individual houses. In these cases, homeowners have been known to move their house numbers from one door (in one country) to a different door (in the other country) to change the official location of their residence and escape tax increases in the original country. Too bad this doesn’t work for the rest of us. 
Very shortly after my family moved here and had sent everyone our new address ( :smack: ), our ZIP code changed from 45385 to 45434. I think the latter was an entirely new code, but I’m really not sure.
Our area code eventually changed, too, when everything but metro Cincinnati was cast out of the 513 area code.
We had our postal code changed from K2S1E1 to K2S1E2 several years ago, but the rest of our address remained the same, so it can happen. It was quite a pain in the ass to remember the new postal code for a while.
I used to live in West Hollywood, CA and there was actually a huge ruckus over this. The post office wanted to give all of West Hollywood its own zip code, as it was a city and no longer a part of Los Angeles.
However, the local government didn’t like the idea as, because West Hollywood is a very Gay and Lesbian city, they were afraid corporations would use the zip to deny medical coverage, or be used/classified in other sinister ways. So instead, this tiny little city wound up with 4 zip codes. Of course, every respectable Gay man wanted to live in the best of the four zip codes assigned to the city: 90069 (seriously).
They also chopped up the telephone area codes, which made it really stupid and you had to dial an 11 digit number to get take out from across the street…but that is another subject.