Let’s get this thread restarted on some key issues.
Many municipalities ban painting of house numbers on curbs. This is their curbs, not yours. What gets painted on them is under their control and many places really want to limit what goes there. E.g., what if people starting painting their curbs red or yellow? I have read articles about people getting a warning to remove the numbers the day after they are painted on. So check with your local government before having this done.
The main purpose of painting numbers on the curb is to make money for the painter. Some groups that do this are of the “Traveller” variety. They don’t know or don’t care if they are breaking the law.
My favorites are the houses that have the built-in numbers on the houses with backlights. The LEDs or whatever in there must be controlled by a light sensor, because the entire neighborhood has them lit at night, even if they’re not home.
This practice depends a lot on where you live. In cities, cars will be parked all along a street. (Although it is illegal to park within five feet of a driveway in my city, this is seldom enforced.) And most of the suburbs around here don’t have curbs at all.
Then there is also the issue of snow. Curbs here will be obscured as many as six months a year because of piled snow or piled leaves.
In short, painting numbers on curbs is virtually unheard of around here.
Dumb and dumber
The city I worked for, a few years ago, got some kind of federal grant to put kids to work during the summer. They grouped them in squads of 10 with a DPW worker as their boss. They proceded to spend the grant by painting a 12 inch wide line from the curb to the middle of the road, to signify the location of fire hydrants. It worked just great. Then, November rolled around and the first snow fell. In the spring, after the snow plowing and salting, guess what? All gone.:wally
Ditto. Even if there are large driveways, a lot of people choose to park cars in the street–usually in the most inconvenient place (for everybody else) they can possibly find. The only places I can think of that would forbid this would be places controled by up-tight homeowner’s associations that would also frown on painting stuff on the curbs.
This is true of the suburbs where my parents and sister live as well. They’re middle class suburbs, so not every house was issued with a suitably large tree. Some people have them on the pole for their driveway lights, or the pole holding up the mailbox; some even on poles specially placed just for the sign. But better than 2/3 of the houses have a reflective sign with the house number placed close to the road somewhere. I seem to remember my mother mentioning that the local volunteer fire departments had been selling them, partly as a fundraiser, partly because it helps them out.
I can tell you this much: Your new paper carrier will LOVE you forever if your number is on the curb. It’s nearly impossible to find house numbers at 3:00 a.m.
Painting numbers on the curb must be common(or mandatory) in some areas. The subject was of some importance in the testomony of the limousine driver in the OJ Simpson trial.
I’ve seen numbers on curbs around here, but it’s pretty rare. Snow in winter, leaves in fall, and parked cars any time of the year means that you will likely not be able to see the number. OTOH, most houses have the address numbers mounted right next to the front door.
Have you ever seen houses where the address is spelled out in fancy cursive wriitng? Like, if the address is 41225, the sign will say “Four One Two Two Five” in ornate script? God, I hate that! You can’t read the damn sign fast enough while driving by, so you have to come to a complete stop in the street. I can only assume that the people who use these “numbers” have never tried to find a house that is so identified. 'Cause if they had, they’d rip down those words and get some normal, easy-to-read house numbers.
Growing up in Southern California, all of the houses around us had the numbers, black with a reflective white background, painted on the curb. They lasted a couple years and every so often someone would come along and paint them new, then leave a bill for the painting behind, usually about $5. My father loved it because he never paid it and got the work done for free. After all, he hadn’t asked for it done in the first place.
I can say that it would really have helped later when I lived in Massachusetts if people would have put their numbers anywhere on their building. I swear, I never could find street names or numbers on buildings in the four and a half years I lived there…
bodypoet… if you’re delivering papers at 3 AM… Isn’t it too dark to read the curb?
Besides, as someone noted earlier, it only makes sense if everyone in the neighborhood does it, too - otherwise, why would anyone look at the curb, and if they did look, why would they assume those were the house numbers?
I think it looks like graffiti, to tell the truth. It looks ugly. Better to have your number emlazoned on your mailbox by the street or right next to the front door in big numerals than to have it buried on a curbside.
Some of the most neat and orderly graffiti I’ve ever seen.
As someone who has previously worked in the “delivery industry” I can also testify as to how much easier it is for us when you have your address numbers painted on your curve.
They are visible from a moving car so instead of us having to take our eyes off the road in order to hunt down where an address might be we can keep easy track of where we are. When the numbers are on the curve we know where to look for them and that they will always be well lit (if your neighborhood has streetlights anyway). Mailbox addresses are a pain if the numbers aren’t large enough, but at least those are visible. It’s when the addresses are either obscured in darkness or hidden away entirely that you are just making things harder on yourself in terms of late pizzas or paramedics. So if numbers on the curve aren’t an option then I’d at least suggest backlighting the address (and remembering to have it on).
Of course we don’t get much snow down here in Houston so that might make them a little more useful year round. But when cars are parked in front of the numbers we can usually use the surrounding addresses as a guide.
Generally my headlights (I drive my routes, although I do a lot of hopping in and out to run up driveways) light up the curbs enough to see the numbers. Otherwise, I have to pull into drives and search around for house numbers, assuming that I’m not in one of the few neighborhoods that have standard, well-lit, BIG house numbers on every house. I worry about having to wander around folks’ yards in the dark.
I have worked in one neighborhood in which each and every house had the big numbers you’re referring to. sigh It was heaven for paper carriers. Unfortunately, it’s not common around here…those numbers have to be pretty darn big, well-lit, and clear in order to be easy to read. Even in the heavenly neighborhood, it can be slow going if there is the slightest rain or mist.
If I’m looking for a particular house, I always check the curbs first; some neighborhoods have them, some don’t. Mailbox numbers can be helpful too, but some of my neighborhoods have clusters of mailboxes rather than individual ones by each drive.
Of course, delivery people will eventually figure it all out, but it can have a serious effect on the PIA factor involved in new routes or one-time deliveries.
Maybe they differ in how they’re applied to the curb, Azael, because I’ve seen some that were just spraypainted. That’s what I mean when I say they look graffitic.
I can understand if an entire development does this and also has few if any cars parked along the curb, but it just seems more sensible to have a highly visible set of numbers on the house itself - that way there’s no question to which house it belongs to. Oh, and also you won’t have to go through a shakedown by the local charity.
It may be helpful to distinguish that some neighborhoods of single-family dwellings have their mailboxes roadside, while others have them on the house.
Putting the numbers in reflective paint on both sides of a roadside mailbox would be the ideal, IMO, because:
[list=1]
[li]Less likely that a car parked in the steet will block the number.[/li][li]A car’s own headlights will ‘light up’ the numbering, rather than relying on the homeowner to have a front light on.[/li][li]The number faces the driver while they are still tens of yards away. Curbside numbers are at an oblique angle until you are on top of the house.[/li][li]It’ll help the postal deliver, for sure.[/li][/list=1]
Of course, not all houses have roadside mailboxes, and not all domiciles are single-family units.
The next best thing would be, IMO, large black letters on a yellow background sign with a low wattage light with a light sensor for it to go on at night tacked up right next to the entrance of the house, visible from the roadside.
Most of the houses in my neighborhood have reflective white numbers stenciled on a black background on the curb right where the driveway begins. No one’s parking that close to a driveway (of course, out here in the Wide Open West, there’s street parking going begging), and the numbers are easy to read. In other neighborhoods, I’ve seen the numbers painted two to a driveway, on the places where the pavement starts to curve down. Every few years, someone comes by with the stencils and spray paint and does them over for a few dollars apiece.
I’m an EMT and drive an ambulance and had to register to post in this topic.
The advantage is I love street numbers on curbs. Nothing makes finding places easier than those. Almost everyday I end up having to make annoying U-turns in the middle of busy traffic cause I couldn’t find the address and I over shoot the location, it happened twice today. I don’t have to turn my head to see the curb numbers, and I can keep driving my normal speed. If you don’t have curb numbers I end up having to keep slowing down at every house/store/business in the rare chance i get a glimpse of something that remotely resembles a street number.
I think that’s unlikely to happen, though, because most home owners would consider it extremely unattractive to have big yellow signs tacked onto their houses…and actually, the same goes for some people with their mailboxes. It seems to me that curbside numbers, if painted neatly with reflective paint, also provide the visibility without all the hassles of aesthetics–even if people object to them, the curbs don’t belong to them and can be painted any way the local authorities please. This also gets rid of house-to-house variations, which can really trip you up even if every single house has well-displayed numbers in its own right.
