American Reacts to Unexpected Things About Living in the UK 

I tend to agree with you, the vast majority of people have no intention of sticking anything malicious/dangerous through your letterbox. Yes there are instances of people who have done something untoward or malicious, but generally as you say people don't normally have that mindset that someone could or would want to cause harm to them via a letterbox.

Nothing I watch in these type of channels would ever make want me to go live in the USA!

I'm from northern Ireland and people pour petrol through them and set fire to your house

Woulnt live in america if ybpayed me unless I was very rich

I heard a story once of a phantom hotdog mail dropper. Every now and then someone would post a hotdog in to the letterbox of every house down a street. It caused a neighborhood hotdog watch. Very rare someone does something malicious through a letterbox, your more likely to get in a car crash.

I think this says quite a lot about his world view!

I think it's just Americans paranoia, it's like when they say they keep a gun in their house for protection in case anyone breaks in. If they're breaking in they're doing it to steal your TV, not kill you 😂

More likely to be excrement. But I remember at least one incident of setting a fire through the letterbox.

The only reason I would use a washing up bowl is if I had a sink that could easily get scratched by pans. Dishwashers are still not in every home in the UK, my dad and two younger sisters don’t have one. These days with the material used in modern sinks, it’s not too much of an issue, so I don’t use one now, but I also have a dishwasher so wouldn’t be using the sink to wash day to day crockery/pans anyway. Amazon Prime is generally either same day or next day delivery. Royal Mail post can also be guaranteed next day if you pay for it. As for house names, anyone can use them but we would also have to use the number if it’s on a street with other houses. If the house is in the middle of nowhere, you probably would just have a name and not even have a number, but you would also have your own postcode that is just for your house, if you don’t have other houses close to you (there is generally a different postcode for each street/road in the UK, if it’s a long road you might have more than one postcode). So because of the postcode system it’s easy enough to find houses that just have a name in the UK.

Islam. Wake up.

There's nothing more annoying than needing to use the sink and it's full of dishes so if the dishes are in the bowl you can just pull the bowl out of the sink

With the bills alone, that is poison enough.

I never use a washing up bowl , they are stupid.

The reason behind a washing up bowl is a good question , I’ve lived here since 1975 still don’t know

To keep the sink clean and to have a place that you wash your eating things in rather than the sink which all sorts goes in

LOL

Talking about Harry Potter the bus drivers leave a bit to be desired especially the night ones.

🤣😂😂🤣😂😂🤣😂🤣

😂😂😂 nor me 30 year in england nd never heard of such things, too mny cctv on houses nowadays

Shocked? Surely the word she is looking for is surprised?

There were also very shallow rectangular brown sinks just about five inches high, 20 inches deep and almost three feet wide, called “slopstones”. Most Victorian terraced small two up two down houses, with outside toilet but no bathroom, were built with these rectangular sinks already installed in a kitchen floored with flagstones. They were very commonplace even in the 1950’s when I was growing up. My own home had a kitchen like this. We kept a white metal enamelled bowl in this sink (I’d never even seen a plastic bowl in those days) so that we could wash dishes there or even use a similar metal bowl to wash ourselves. The slopstones were very useful to stand a toddler in for a sloshy wash down or even when we washed the dog (no need for the bowl then). The slopstone was replaced by the white butler sink in the 1960’s.

I wouldn't want to put soapy water on plants.

Why not,I'm a gardener and do it regularly

@webbsfan1 As far as I was aware it adjusted the PH of the soil and was also harmful to the leaves if it got on them. I think you can make weed killer using it.

Not soapy water,you can also use it as a spray against aphids and such.

As part of its universal service obligation, Royal Mail must deliver to every address in the UK, every Monday to Saturday. But for some addresses, it is not possible for Royal Mail to deliver mail right up to the door.......

I’m an ex postman the service not only goes to the door and letterbox but it must be pushed through so that the letters can’t be pulled back out and stolen

​@@bertieballs😂😂

We also have postcodes like your zip codes.

unfortunately quite a few arsons have been caused by people pouring through letterboxes in the uk, people have lost their lives.

Exactly, pre-dishwhaser or couldn't afford one at the time

Exactly! Take out the pots& then put in water to peel the spuds & carrots etc then put the bowl back in!! Or as you say fill the kettle without dipping it in water 😂

pre-dishwasher? others can actually afford dish washers now a days? 😅 plus feels like another machine to keep clean/worry about breaking down.

@@lostindisorder dont pretend, you know we all have them. Just cant afford to run them anymore :)

@@Muddflud We've never actually had one, I'm not too sure I know anyone that's ever had one either 😅 I know you need a big enough house to have an additional large appliance for starters.

just wait until they find out that some houses do have outdoor mailboxes(sometimes in a driveways brick wall) but they are just a letter box in the wall with a metal box to hold the mail :P

US curbside mailboxes are so small they fill up way too quickly. In the UK you can bugger off for weeks on end and the mail will accumulate behind the front door forever. In the US the post office will only hold the mail for you for 30 days which does me no good as I'm often away for months on end back home in the UK. Once the curbside box is full they stop delivering and return to sender. Which is shit if you're expecting a cheque while away. So the letterbox is far superior to a mailbox. The problems of living in 2 countries. As a Brit living in the US and the UK it annoys me immensely that the switches and outlets are upside down in the US although I do like driving on the right. Try finding a pork pie in the US.

Try delivering to house/cottages/highrise flats(named highrise's. Its a nightmare, rural areas are worse as a 1 postcode could stretch to a gd 2-4 mile radius. We have to rely on navigation experiance snd apps designed for building names. Ex ups driver 😂, it makes more sense in the country side as u dnt have rows of house that often but wen u get house name nd no numbers on normal residentail streets its becomes a vain to the job ;)

Was going to mention postcodes too, my house doesn’t have a number either however I use pickup points for Amazon, I don’t think the delivery driver even tries.

@@deanpainter8536 Exactly, we live in the hills above Loch Ness on the southside. All houses are named, and the postcode is well over 2 mile radius. As we live off the main road, we get a lot of lost delivery drivers.

Once had a lit firework shoved through the letterbox. We were having a party and it was done for a prank, so I shoved it back out again and held the letterbox shut until the idiot got bored and went away.

I have had something unwanted thought my letter box. A letter from the tax people,

@@da90sReAlvloc comment of the day. 😂

Years ago, I was looking after a dog for a couple of weeks. I also had a driving licence with teeth marks.

@@grahvis Yours or the dog’s?

That pretty good, i line in England about 30 mins from nearest town and on a main road but only 1 bus runs through the village roughly once an hour but stops at about 6pm. there is another bus but it's rather erratic on its times and sometimes they cut it entirely if they don't think they will make the money. Still really handy to have though.

Wow, small indeed I bet you were stunned

I’m from Leeds 😊😊

I have also been to Kenya on holiday. I spoke to a Scottish couple and asked where in Scotland they came from. It's a small place you will never have heard of Port Seaton. They were shocked when I said yep know it. Just down the road from musselburgh. It's where my parents walked out on dates. So yep small world

I used to work in a newsagents and one of thr guys working in estate agents came in asking for stamps. He wrote a cheque out and I said the surname is very unusual, he said my fiancée family is from Ireland. I said the place and he was like how do you know that. I asked him if he knew someone called Syd and he's like that's my fiancée uncle. He was like how do you know this, said Syd is my father. I ended up going to Lincolnshire for their wedding with the rest of the family. Small world right.

Thanks for sharing that. It's a lovely story.

My sink came with a basket which fitted very snugly into it. The sink is made from moulded polypropylene (Astracast) and I was told the plastic basket inside was there to protect crockery from getting chipped, hitting against the sides of the sink as you wash. I didn't use it, which might explain all the chipped plates over the years.

Exactly! You don't chip your crockery if you wash up in a plastic bowl.

@@bethiakittifyAnd if you need to clear your sink very fast, just whip out the bowl, set it on the side, fill the kettle without dipping it in dishwater, then lift your washing-up bowl back in.

I live in the US, I have always had a letter box. Everyone I know has a letter box. I am not afraid of my letter box. I don’t know a single person who is afraid of their letter box.

for the same reasons why your first thoughts about having mail box might be that people steal your shit, humans recognise issues first, a sisters ex threatened to put fire through our letterbox and it is something that happens

​@@NostalgiaVivecThe letterbox is for convenience, not security.

You forget we don't have meth here in the UK

@@difficultr we do have spice heads and smack heads tho

". . . ripping up the post lol." or to stop the same dog that rips up letters ripping up the postman's hand. I used to deliver, leaflets0. The worst dogs t i think are those little Jack Russel terriers. They hear you coming and just sit there quiet as a mouse, staring at the letterbox. Then just as the juucy looking fingers of the postie appear -- bark, bark, bark, bark, bite bite bite bite, snarl etc. There the ;property own0er opens the door and they are holding the little b----r in their arms like a baby "oh" " they say "you mustn't mind, he's like that with everyone" And I'm 'like ""yes madam, of course" sorry to have troubled you One more thing, just a quibble but pity your postie, The number of high security letterboxes that are just heavy, awkward, narrow bent at 180 degrees etc. And you've got to get "do not bend or fold" materials through or ring thee doorbell. which takes ages." I swear some hoem owners would put spikes on the inside. To feel a bit safer oh the joys of thr british front door letterrbox. you Amercans are lucky..

@@ukwhitewitch II apologise. I hav Parkinson's disease adnd i fdo makke aa lot of typos. I genuinnely didn't thinkk it was all thart b bad. I'l try to edit it today. I feel a little bit bad for letttting Team UK down as it weere.

@@ukwhitewitch Please. don't be. It's slays god to get criticism and feedback. As long ss it is honest and well intended.. You were standing up , politel;tly, for what yopu thought was true in defence of our Ameerracn hossts eho you thought were bei vg misserved by a cokunbrtryman. good for you. hip huraah and so on.

I’m from the US, I don’t know anyone with a mailbox. On the east coast of the US, we all mostly have letterboxes, even in the suburbs. You have to drive quite far out into the rural country to find homes with mailboxes. The point of the mailboxes are to make letter delivery quicker for the mail carriers in rural areas, so they drive right up to the mailboxes and out the mail in. I find it really odd that these 2 folks think the mail slots/letter boxes are a strange concept. And we don’t find our letterboxes/mail slots dangerous 😂.

As a family we lived in New Zealand, we had letterboxes almost on the road on our front lawn, the times we had soaking wet unreadable letters. My mum had to dry them out first, also my dad was a local postman there..on his bike.

2 Nations divided by a common tongue George Bernard Shaw.

In Northern Ireland we usually refer to Hamlets as Townlands

Her good reputation already speaks for her last month i invested over $100,000 with her and I've already made over $250,000 profit.

Oh please, how can someone get to speak with Mary Margaret Schimweg!!?

@@hernandezwright she will guide you👇👇

+1

‪50921

I would like to buy one and fit it for my letter box, as I find it difficult to bend down and pick it up off the floor. Where do you get them from, and are they easy to fix? Bearing in mind I have the DIY skills of a 1 year old :-)

@@robcrossgrove7927 I made my own because at the time I was a self assembly furniture maker. At work I had all the machinery to do it. I beleive that you can buy a metal basket which you can screw onto the door. I'm not sure where you can get them, but there must be somewhere online.

​@@robcrossgrove7927 I had a similar problem. I took a large shoe box (one where the lid is a flap) and cut a hole in the bottom, very slightly larger that my letterbox. I then doubled over duct tape (so it was like really strong double sided tape) and fixed it over the letterbox so the post falls inside and the lid is attached at the bottom. I then put another strip along the top and bottom for extra stability. Lastly, I put a split pin near the top of the lid and another on the top of the box so I could fasten it with a hairband. It lasted for years! All of this because I was too cheap to buy one of those letterbox cage things!😂😂 On the plus side, no screwdrivers required!😉😉

@@robcrossgrove7927 Argos and The Range sell letter box cages. They don't cost that much.

We had to get one because my husband was self employed and our dog was always ripping up his customer's cheques! 🙄

If you are lucky ordering in morning some goods arrive that evening. Dist centre 8 miles away

@@johngreen869 yeah there's a distribution centre not far from where I live

Had deliveries arrive same day on more than a few occasions. Anything that takes over 2 days is unusual even where advertised as 2-5 days. Most courier deliveries are guaranteed next day with faster services available down to about 4 hours in cities. I've found it more of a problem when you have ordered something with 2-5 days delivery and you get a card for a missed delivery the next day. Generally they'll attempt to deliver 3 times - after that it's collect from the depot or it will have been left with a neighbour. As for how the postie knows where to deliver the mail - our postcodes cover a maximum of about 10 properties so it doesn't take much to find the right one. You thing a letterbox is a security risk but the number of US properties where the owners don't seem to have an issue with cat flaps or even dog flaps that someone could crawl through. A letterbox is about 1.5 inches high and about 5 inches wide so it's not as if you can even get an adult hand through and have a heavily sprung door hinged at the top

I feel your pain. The last door on my rounds on a Sunday with the Times. They had the smallest letterbox you can imagine and it felt like I was putting pages at a time. Plus the fact having to carry all it around my entire round was a pain but at least they tipped well.

The worst letterbox was the small vertical with the spring loaded flap

....and many a Crossword was done.

@@craigbirks7075Yep, would snap your poor fingers! Hated those! Eventually learned how to open and close it very, very carefully!

Oh gods, yes!

My son is disabled and can use buses anywhere for free too.

@@cyflym11 I love my disabled bus pass. When my dad was in hospital long term I was able to visit him every week even though he lived 3 hours away and I never would have been able to without my pass.

Sometimes same day delivery

Yes. This. Good!

Washing up bowl, other than safer for your crockery, you can re use water outside to water plants if you want. We reuse a lot of things in the UK, better for the planet.

For me it's two-fold. You don't need as much hot water for a bowl as for a sink and also, since the sink is often stainless steel and the bowl plastic, the same amount of water will stay hot for longer in the bowl. You can also empty the bowl directly into an outside drain and avoid blocking pipes with waste food from the washing up, or use it to water plants in the garden. And if you have the washing machine running you avoid having the risk of it deciding to pump water out at the same time as you empty the sink (in my experience the typical UK kitchen shares one outflow pipe for all waste water).

Exactly!

It just sounds so charming, though! I think people in the UK cannot see sometimes how they have all sorts of things that are just somehow "radioactive with Britishness", That is hard to define, but you know it when you see it. The rest of the world gets it, even if the inhabitants don't. It is just quirky, and don't even mention the taps!

Yes we mostly have letterboxs here. Maybe as a novelty some thing different we would have them in rural areas. Or maybe house is big difference from road. We now live in highrise flat apartment to you. And yes we still have letterboxs in our door.

Yep, they are a completely different culture, even though they )sort of) speak our language!

@@andreaconroy3623 And our culture is forever evolving. The US is a very different place now than it was in my childhood.

@@C.O._Jones same in the UK!

As Al Murray said "and a fxxxing great big ocean, thank christ" 😆

Whatever you think of the US if we had trouble with Russia or China we'd be glad to have them as a trusted ally

The cage is especially good if you have a ravenous dog that will shred anything that lands

I once saw several in Maidstone near the canal for the house boats to get their post! I thought that was a clever idea

Thank you for your service and wearing shorts no matter the weather x

Back over 50 years ago, I was one of the many students who got a temporary job before Xmas as a Relief Postie. This was in the smallish town of Lanark - about 6000 population then. The regular posties were a fount of knowledge about the folk who lived in the town and countryside round about, even if they were recent incomers. Before we went out on deliveries we had to sort the mail into the different delivery rounds. A typical exchange would be, "One here fore Granny Jean, Lanark. Any ideas. A cry from across the sorting office, "What's the postmark?" "Looks like Alberta, Canada. Cannae mak oot the toon." A few seconds pause then, "Och, that'll be Jeannie Ferguson, xx Hindmarch Street. That's from her niece." The last mail from elsewhere would arrive about 1600 on Christmas Eve and we did a final sort and delivery of that with the aim of getting everything to the recipients by about 2100. There was a 'Dead Mail Box' for undeliverable mail but there were rarely more than half a dozen items in it even after the Christmas deluge. It was a point of honour among the regular posties to find the right person to receive it. Your mail wouldn't sit in the 'Dead Mail' even if you were actually dead because the posties would know who the solicitor responsible for the will was and often even the executors! I'd done the Xmas mail in my final year at school and so I knew our own postie well when the time came to get a place at a University. I'd already got acceptances from Strathclyde and Glasgow but still hadn't heard from the one I really wanted - Dundee. I met the postie when I was on the way to catch the train to school and he shouted to me across the road. "Bob! I've got that Dundee Acceptance!" That puzzled me a bit. "How d'ye know it's an acceptance, Jimmy?" "Och, that's easy. If it's a 'NO' then it's a wee letter. Yours is a big wan wi' a' the bumph an' forms that you've got to read now." I bet loads of folk thought they had all sorts of secrets but they reckoned without the Posties!

Well a key thing with the names (even without street names on the address) is that the postcode doesn’t actually cover that many properties (20?) so as you sort into your frames it’d become apparent without the street name. I work in developing new properties and Royal Mail are pretty strict on rejecting similar house names even on different streets in the locality. Eg recently tried to name a house “The Laurels” (rejected because there was a house with the name Laurels as an addition to its number about 7 houses down on the road the close with this house was off … so separate postcode but probably less than a third of a mile away) and “The Oaks” (rejected because there was an Oakridge in the same postcode) - so had to go with “Woodside”

Also - Ireland was even worse. Only brought in postcodes a few years ago (although they are literally unique for each tax registered property - some houses have 2 as the side door used to be a granny annex) and one of the plus points was “avoid confusion when people have the same name in the same rural area” … apparently if they just had the name and area the postman would deliver to the oldest, who’d read it and say “not for me” before handing it back 😂. A story I heard about postmen knowing the route was someone at work posted a birthday card to her dad at his brother’s house in Ireland where he was staying for a few weeks. It arrived back saying “no such person at this address” and when she told her mum she was told “well you should have written c/o Brother, otherwise the postman knows your dad doesn’t live there and would have just sent it straight back before delivery”

@@paulebroderick, actually the number of properties that are covered by each postcode, is infinitely variable, for example my own property has the same code for the entire street, on the odd side it is numbered from one to twenty seven, with one block of four flats, but the even side starts at number four and ends at number forty four. There are no missing numbers and no empty spaces. It all comes down to house sizes and the density of construction. Other streets nearby there are streets that have only fifteen properties in total but the road that connects these streets on its even numbered side it is numbered from 32 to 564 but the odd side only has a small number of properties due to the presence of a former mill, a large school grounds, a police station and various other public and commercial properties. There are also some properties in the same district that are so large that they have to have multiple postcodes to enable the post office to handle the correspondence that is received for what is just one large property, so your estimate of 20 properties sharing gone post code is wildly inaccurate.

Also helpful to pour the remainder of my tea into the sink, before putting in the washing up bowl.

Before the national introduction of the penny post in May 1840, people outside London had to pay to *receive* their mail, not to post it. So there was no call for a letter box. People tried the scam that if they got a letter from an individual, that was the signal, so they refused to pay for it, so it had to go back to the sender, which was a second signal. I don’t see therefore that outside London, which had a basic franked post before 1840, anyone could have had a letter box. That’s why they had the Postman’s Knock - the postman needed to collect the charge.

The address where the letter with the first penny black stamp was posted to the building that is next to me in Bedlington Northumberland

My mum has a little vintage letterbox in the wall by her gates purely because it looks cute as hell but it has a sign saying 'not a real postbox', the amount of letters she posts for people who drop them in there is insane, she's essentially a postman now hahahaha

The postcode covers around 25 houses.

​@Alison Randall not always. I lived in a rural spot where only mine and next door had that postcode.

American zip codes actually have an extra 4 digits since 1983 but it’s generally not used by most people.

I believe the first digits on American numbering refers to the block number, e.g. 20103 would be house number 103 on block 20. It works like hotel room numbers starting with the floor numbers.

My old house was called Sawrey after a place in the Lake District easy for the postman but maybe not for the posters. I got a letter to … Sorry ….

My house is Bridge House... The house by the bridge 😂 it's been so since 1750 😉🤣

Which village? Or the name of a town or city nearby if you don't want that info out there? I've lived all over the world, but I was born in Devon and live there currently. I love being close to the beaches too much to stay anywhere else. In Barnstaple I'm sandwiched between a few of the best beaches in the UK.

@@munky342 Yes, you have good beaches like Woolacombe, Croyde, Barricane Beach, and Lee. I also live in North Devon too

@appleduck3767 Woolacombe is my favourite. Barricane is great too. Especially when the food truck is there. When I lived in a German city the one thing I missed was the Devon beaches. Artificial beaches on a lake were not a suitable replacement 😂

I live in a small rural Village as well and all the houses are named, i often have issues with takeaways or postmen not finding my house. My house is called Millhouse because it used to have a windmill which adds some nice historical flavour since it is over 400 years old (it has a longer history than the USA which is an interesting thought ). Unfortunately there's another house down the road called High Millhouse and i often get their mail and vice versa, though i feel that's more down to lazy postmen as it clearly states the name on a large sign next to door. As for takeaways it's often dark and the house is a good 10 metres from the road so you likely cannot see the sign. I do wish we had both numbers and names to help people find them easier.

I’ve been to Devon for a holiday, I loved looking at the house names, I think it is quite sweet.

That depends on where you live as water in England is privatised, whereas in Scotland, it's not and goes on size of property instead. The bowl is because many homes in the UK only have one single bowl so when washing up, you can pour liquids or scraps down the side of the bowl, keeping the soapy water as clean as possible.

I pay £16 per month for water, wouldn't really say its expensive, not for me anyway.

Less than £2 for 1000 litres of drinkable water is not expensive!

@@JLO72 I have lived in Scotland and England and England is cheaper by a mile. For singles/couples. Because my DD is £18 with a meter, even that is too high, I reckon am using about £14 over the last 5 months because primarily I was away for a bit. But we will see if they put the DD down in July. But back to Scotland I was in a B council tax band and I paid (consult your council tax bill) about £23 per month with a 25% discount (single person), so that is £30 for a couple. Anyone (any couple ) could easily beat these amounts with a meter even with baths. The issue for me is A) You pay for a meter (I was quoted £200 plus an extra £200-£900 for the survey) and they couldn't tell me if it was £200 or £900. And in England it is the law to get a meter if you move and it is free. Its the law but not really acted upon. So anyone single definitely will pay less in England and most couples. What doesn't Scotland understand, we are trying to save water. And by the way, I had a water leak which I didn't know (was the case when I bought it) so they lost a lot of water (Scottish water) before they eventually let me know. I said can't you sort it, and they said down to you. I said aren't you concerned about losing all this water (and believe me it was a lot), so much thta I turned it off unless I used it while I waited for a repair. So A) Cheaper in England despite privatisation, B)People are wasting water in Scotland as no meters and C) Leaks are not being fixed if even known about because no meters. If I had no money wouldn't have been fixed and I notices all the worms I had under courtyard went away after fixing. So its not rocket Science, fix meters so people know. But of course as you highlight it must be very expensive in a band G council tax house. Which you may reckon is correct, but why is it as their water use may not be any higher. Lastly it is not helping Council tax revenue, a reason why Argyll and Bute council charged me £65 for a roadside pickup for items and Durham only charged me recently £18. And it has to be said a 3 weekly pickup of both normal refuse and recycling (in Scotland and 2 weeks in durham). No food waste pickup, no garden waste pickup. It is because of water (in my opinion) being on the council tax bill. And not only very high cost for businesses to go to the tip. One business I used had a man on the inside where he bunged a tenner or 20 to, so corruption going on because of high costs to business. And you may like to know I had a load of rubble etc under the floorboards which when the Gas CH was on I smelt a burning smell, that's the other option for businesses. I had it out of there sharpish and put it into the main refuse bin (over weeks or months). Lucky I had storage, I didn't have to dump it on the street. Or they could fly tip it which I expect many to do. All is the result of water being on the council tax bill.

For me the reason why I use a washing up bowl is so your not putting food remains down the sink

We’re so quaint.Apparently.Stuck in the past.Apparently.

I know nobody who still uses a plastic bowl in a sink or who has double taps in their house in the UK.

​@JohnnyZenith good for you, you want a medal for that? loads of people still have them

Your first point. Ever heard of a plug?

@@JohnnyZenith Then you don’t get into people’s houses very often mate 😂

@@JohnnyZenith my mum and my sister still use washing up bowls

I think Michigan is actually closet to the UK in terms of size. Population size, we're bigger than all of them.

The whole of my UK street of about 36 houses all have the same postcode and I have been told this is not uncommon. When I put my address on the back of something going abroad I will put my name, the house number and the postcode for the street/town ,then UK

@@gillcawthorn7572it’s not that common, but I’ve lied in a street where that was the case. Most small streets have two postcodes, one for even numbers, ones for odd. Either way, a postcode only need the house number , and hey presto , post will get to you

In the Netherlands, just the house number and postal code is enough to get mail to its destination. That's how the return address is usually written.

​@@ulfvinr9364, same in the UK.

I used to live in a house called Archer's Cottage the address was just Archers cottage, Main Street, followed by the name of the village and postcode.

Mail slots are usually in more dense cities in the US, I think. The only time I had one was when I lived in a row home in Washington DC. In that neighborhood, I felt safer having my mail drop directly into my entryway than a mail box where some local pranksters might grab its contents just to be destructive.

We didn't know the number of our friend's house when we sent a postcard on holiday. So we just put "The house next to the electric substation, opposite the Victoria pub" and it got there 😂

Along my English country lane, all the houses are just named not numbered. Never thought of it as odd 😄 my parents built their first home in the 50s and named it. Later, as more houses were built along the road, they were also allocated numbers

A few years ago, our local council requested that we all have numbers as well as names. They actually gave us the numbers. It is in the interests of ambulances, fire vehicles or the police having quick access if necessary.

@@marycarver1542 we also share a postcode with other houses that backs onto ours, lost count the amount of deliveries we’ve had that are for the other street. Looking back over the deeds it’s was something to do with the gardens when the other houses were built, and them being south facing & having a better view 😂 so they were out the other way facing another street! Bonkers!

We went camping in Dartmoor and the site was on a very rural road. The owner told us that even though there was no bus stop, if we stood at the gate and put our hands out the driver would stop for us, which he did. A very hair raising ride followed as the double decker hurtled along the road with branches whipping at the windows. If something large like a lorry was coming the other way the driver didn't slow down at all and for a split second everyone on board would stop talking and hold their breath! He certainly got us to our destination in double quick time though.

Really if you can't drive there is usually a bus sercice at some point during the day so ordering a taxi to a railway station might be just a late night or Sunday thing.

As a retired postman I second that.

Our dogs (golden retrievers) love the postie. The postie told me that he likes saying hello to them. But we wouldn't let the dogs in the garden if they were vicious and the post was due.