I'm not sure we even noticed when we bought our house, but it didn't have house numbers. We were more focused on things like how old the furnace was and if there was a place for Ward's workshop. However, after we moved in, we did notice that the numbers on the mailbox were very faded and replaced them. We didn't think much more about our lack of numbers until someone was confused about which house was ours. While we had numbers on the mailbox, it was across the street from the house which caused doubts for some. After that, we'd talk about where the numbers should go and what we wanted them to look like until we'd get distracted by something else. Recently, the topic came up again when a workman knocked on the neighbor's door looking for our house.
So we started to make a concerted effort to look at numbers on houses wherever we were noting size, style, and placement. We noticed an interesting thing while we were looking around-over half of the houses in our neighborhood didn't have house numbers. A few of those had a mailbox in their front yard with numbers, but the rest did not. I have never lived in a neighborhood where all of the houses didn't have numbers and I didn't know what to make of it. Still don't.
However, we have joined the neighborhood minority and have house numbers. Ward put together a plaque with large numbers that are easy to see from the street. And it only took us five years to make it happen. :)
Do all of the houses in your neighborhood have numbers?
