Address not posted on mailboxes or house

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str8lacelaci

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Do you have any suggestions on how to educate communities to post there house numbers on their home or on the mailboxes? In my response area (county) there is not a city/county law to do so. How do you defend driving by the address when its not posted?
 
Articles in the newspapers and handing out free house numbers is how we do it. Also, if we have any specific problems finding the address we say so in the living room on the scene of the call. They don't usually *listen* or anything, but that's the technique.

We started our 911 system about a dozen years ago, and at that time, and every time a new address has been registered since then, the county gives the homeowner a placard with the address. Our address posting is well over 95%.
 
Do you access to any of those newspaper articles? I would just like to read several before I write my own. Thank you very much!
 
No, I don't think our local paper has online archives.

We usually just called the newspaper, had them come out and take a picture of someone handing out one of the placards to a person, and they wrote the article.

The headline is usually something like, "Help can't find you if your address isn't posted."
 
From what I was told, my service ran several articles in the paper basically stating that if EMS could not locate an address due to the resident's failure to properly place house numbers on it, it was not our fault if they keeled over while we were looking for a number or drove by trying to find the residence. Stupid kills.
 
?? Kansas doesn't require folks to post their addresses? That is weird. Must be a pain to find the correct location.
 
We always tell people that they need to renumber their address to make it more visible. As long as they know you are acting in their best interest, they don't get mad. Don't know if anyone has actually renumbered their address or not, but its worth a shot.
 
WARR said:
?? Kansas doesn't require folks to post their addresses? That is weird. Must be a pain to find the correct location.
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There's a big difference between requirements and compliance.
 
Nothing works. Nothing.

My fire district will, once a year launch a major "Mark your driveway" campaign. We provide free reflective signs and even offer to install them if you ask. Yet I would bet that well over half the houses we cover are still unmarked.
 
str8lacelaci said:
. How do you defend driving by the address when its not posted?
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umm, it's not numbered? if someone complains, the proper response should be "if you don't publicize what your house number is, how do you expect us to find your house when you need us?" It's not not meant to be a rude question, but common sense dictates that it's in everyone's best interest to properly mark their homes so emergency responders can find them quickly.

That being said, my condo association refuses to number our 20 buildings so they can be seen at night. My door cannot be seen from the street, so if I ever need 911, esp at night, I'm confident it will take emergency services longer than it should to find my home. And I did voice my concerns to my condo board, and was told "we don't agree with you, and don't think we need to make either the building numbers or entrances any more visible." and I have yet to waste my time in a meeting since.

As for the original question, what we do when crews can't find an address (due to various reasons) is have the dispatcher step out of the house and flag down the ambulance. Even in the country, I can imagine that having someone doing the ambulance dance outside of the house can be a great landmark.
 
DrParasite said:
That being said, my condo association refuses to number our 20 buildings so they can be seen at night. My door cannot be seen from the street, so if I ever need 911, esp at night, I'm confident it will take emergency services longer than it should to find my home. And I did voice my concerns to my condo board, and was told "we don't agree with you, and don't think we need to make either the building numbers or entrances any more visible." and I have yet to waste my time in a meeting since.
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Are you part of an FD, or do you have contacts in one? Perhaps you could get them to time a run to your specific address, and have the officer in charge sign a statement about how difficult it was to find your specific residence.
 
I think people don't understand that the fancy script number over the house door in black wrought iron isn't going to help us find your house in an emergency. Big, reflective, visible from the street, please.

They also don't understand that it's usually as frustrating for us as it is for them.
 
Whats even worse is a house behind another house, and not numbered, we looked for about 15 minutes the other day for a house on a 1/8 mile road, luckily we had a stable patient.
 
I think this problem is somewhat (possibly even substantially, if not completely) alleviated by the computer system (CAD) in Howard County's units. I haven't played around with it myself, but looking at the screen as others are using it, it looks like the mapping system can be zoomed in quite a bit, to the point where it shows individual boxes representing structures, each box with its street number.

So in theory, you could navigate to a specific street address solely with that, without even having to look at the numbers on the buildings, curbs, mailboxes, etc. I'm sure it's not flawless, but it seems pretty good.

The only time in my limited experience that I remember there being any problem was when we were going to an apartment building. We got to the building alright, but half of the units had their doors on the left side and the other half on the right side of the building. The letters were on the doors and they were not facing the street. There was no guide on the side of the building that we saw that indicated "A-G" on the left side, etc. (And yes, of course we went to the wrong side of the building first.) So even with a system such as Howard County's, there's still a need for proper marking.
 
EMSLaw said:
I think people don't understand that the fancy script number over the house door in black wrought iron isn't going to help us find your house in an emergency. Big, reflective, visible from the street, please.

They also don't understand that it's usually as frustrating for us as it is for them.
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It'd be nice if a lot of houses around here had even those... It would help a lot to see something at all as an address
 
str8lacelaci said:
Do you access to any of those newspaper articles? I would just like to read several before I write my own. Thank you very much!
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You really don't even need an article, a public notice would do fine. You may also be able to join up with an agency that routinely mails things out, and see if they will include a notice for you. Sometimes utility companies will allow things like that to be included in people's bills. Schools may also be willing to distribute notices for all the kids to take home.

Whatever you decide to write make it short and to the point, if possible with a picture of what people should be putting up.
 
Here in my area around here in my part of California it is a requirement by county ordinance to have that and is enforced with monthly checks when they are doing the weed abatement inspections as they meander through the county.
 
Consider to many people don't care or don't want to number their houses, there needs to be a law mandating it. That condo board needs to be deposed. They are idiots.
 
DrParasite said:
As for the original question, what we do when crews can't find an address (due to various reasons) is have the dispatcher step out of the house and flag down the ambulance.
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see what happens when you don't proofread? this should have said:

As for the original question, what we do when crews can't find an address (due to various reasons) is have the dispatcher call the caller back and have the caller step out of the house and flag down the ambulance.
 
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