House hunting pettiness

[Kalmia]

13 hours ago, teachermom2834 said:

This has been fun. I cannot believe no one has asked me what the offending street name in the OP is.

Now this is just academic because we aren’t really ready to buy and it isn’t really the perfect house but it does meet our basic parameters and is in the right location and we would look at it. I’ll go ahead and share because I’m not anonymous on here and have shared my location before. Let me know if you would be put off to tell people you live on:

Touch Me Not Trail

I feel like they are going for the “Leave Only Footprints” nature preservation angle but that is not what comes to mind. 
 

It is a condo community, actually, so maybe it is conveying the idea that this is where you move when you are over it and ready for separate bedrooms?

I think it might be great for my dd to tell her date where to pick her up for prom. 

I think it is named after a pretty, native flower, the spotted jewelweed which is also called the spotted touch-me-not, because if you touch the ripe seed pods, they open quickly and shoot seeds about. 

Here is a link: 

https://mdc.mo.gov/discover-nature/field-guide/spotted-touch-me-not-jewelweed

[73349]

Misspelled ones are the worst for sure.

We also have some unusual choices. There's a neighborhood named after Tennyson, the road into it being "Light Brigade Lane," and I will admit, when they were building it, I snickered every time I went by: Into the Valley of Death, from the $600s!

There are also just so many roads that sound alike, whether they're anywhere near each other or not. Glen Arbor, Glen Canyon, Glen Oak, Glen Valley, Glenfair, Glenfield, Glenhaven, Glenridge, Glenvale, Glenview, Glenwood... Come on.

Edited May 17, 2023 by 73349

[Miss Tick]

54 minutes ago, 73349 said:

A little pretentious, but didn't stop us from buying: 4-digit street numbers on streets one block long. You know, it's okay for a house number to be, like, 5.

Isn't that set by the post office, though? My street has an even numbered house on the odd side of the street because some previous owner switched where they wanted the front door to be. It is still discussed in quiet tones and includes comments about how angry the post office was. 😄 That might be dependent on the region, though.

[Kassia]

1 hour ago, 73349 said:

 

There are also just so many roads that sound alike, whether they're anywhere near each other or not. Glen Arbor, Glen Canyon, Glen Oak, Glen Valley, Glenfair, Glenfield, Glenhaven, Glenridge, Glenvale, Glenview, Glenwood... Come on.

 

We have that here too.  Burlington Glen, Burlington Oval, Woods of Burlington...some of them are near each other and some are on the other side of town.  

 

[73349]

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Edited May 17, 2023 by 73349

[*****]

As a kid, I knew a family that built a house on a new road.  The neighbors got to choose the name of the road, so they went with their preschooler's suggestion:  Sesame Street.  What else?!    But I figured as he got older, he wouldn't have appreciated it as much.

 

What does it take to change a street name I wonder?  Recently an 'A' street near me got changed to a real name.

[teachermom2834]

I don’t mind spelling so much. I went from an extremely difficult maiden name to a very simple married name and it isn’t much easier. Still spelling all the time just fewer letters. I think I have always had to spell every street name I have ever lived on except when I lived on one name after a state. My current street is a long nonsense word so of course I spell it every time but my previous street was a short common word and still had to spell it every time. I think people just want to confirm they heard what they thought they heard and they do that by wanting it spelled. So I’m just always spelling. Come to think of it I do alot of spelling my kids’ common first names. It think there is just so much creative spelling combined with people mumbling, being distracted that spelling is just part of giving info. Also, I’m from the north often dealing with southerners so I think I might start spelling sometimes just because I think they are confused because they are moving at a slower pace than I would. So that part is on me. But spelling isn’t that big of a deal to me.

Funny that this street name bothers me a lot while I’m not bothered by almost any other name people mentioned being bothered by. While most of you are smart and dignified enough to just think of the name as a flower.  That’s fortunate since someone needs to live on these streets. 

[stephanier.1765]

2 hours ago, 73349 said:

The post office must absolutely HATE IT. The same irrational street numbers are used on different streets near each other. 4401 Glenroyal Street might be a block or two away from 4401 Glenridge Rd. I'm pretty sure that the developer gets to name the streets and number the houses.

My neighborhood uses the same house numbers for every street. For example, 1212 Elm St. is one street over from 1212 Oak St. which is one street over from 1212 Pine St. and on and on and on. I get the wrong mail all the time.

[klmama]

A friend lives on a two block narrow street that somehow was named an "avenue."  On the other side of the city is another street by the same first name; it is quite wide, runs for many blocks, and is a major thoroughfare for the neighborhood, yet it is just called a "street."  The avenue was named first.  Makes me wonder.

[shawthorne44]

1 hour ago, stephanier.1765 said:

My neighborhood uses the same house numbers for every street. For example, 1212 Elm St. is one street over from 1212 Oak St. which is one street over from 1212 Pine St. and on and on and on. I get the wrong mail all the time.

This is the way it should be.  With the lowest numbers closest to the town center.  

I have a friend that lives in a fancy development.   Apparently everyone wants a street number < 6.    So everyone lives on a little circle, basically the end of a Court, and there are 5 houses on each.    Street names are also reused.  So, XYZ Street, XYZ Circle, XYZ Court, XYZ Drive.  All with 5 houses on them.  

[Shoeless]

4 hours ago, 73349 said:

The post office must absolutely HATE IT. The same irrational street numbers are used on different streets near each other. 4401 Glenroyal Street might be a block or two away from 4401 Glenridge Rd. I'm pretty sure that the developer gets to name the streets and number the houses.

We have similarly named streets here and package deliveries go astray when a new driver gets the route. (Ex: We have Smith Rd and Smith Hills Rd). One time, a driver left my FedEx package on the side of Smith Rd. Like, there wasn't a building or house or anything nearby that would make you think "Yep, this belongs here". 🙄 The state transportation department found it because they happened to be mowing that day and brought it to my house on Smith Hill.  

[Tree Frog]

We used to live on XX Street Road, which was about a block long and led to an old apartment complex. Street by itself wasn't good enough and Road couldn't be by itself, so we got Street Road. 

[historically accurate]

1 hour ago, Tree Frog said:

We used to live on XX Street Road, which was about a block long and led to an old apartment complex. Street by itself wasn't good enough and Road couldn't be by itself, so we got Street Road. 

We have a Street Road as well - it's "Main" Street in town, and it becomes "Main" Street Road at the edge of town. 

[Drama Llama]

The ones I would actually avoid, and we don’t have them here but do where family members live are the “Jefferson Davis . . . “ type.

[Laura Corin]

14 hours ago, 73349 said:

 

A little pretentious, but didn't stop us from buying: 4-digit street numbers on streets one block long. You know, it's okay for a house number to be, like, 5.

You mean, they deliberately use high numbers? It's not a historical accident?  Why not advertise that it's a cosy short street? 

A nearby town has a street called Butts Wynd. Only tourists giggle though - in Scots, Wynd - pronounced to rhyme with FIND - just means alley. And it used to lead to the archery field, or butts.

I'm glad we have a regular postie who knows her way around. There are around ten houses on the street named for a now-demolished local landmark. We don't have house numbers, and the houses are called something like Millgate, Milfield, The Mill, Mill Ford...

[TravelingChris]

On 9/14/2022 at 3:05 PM, Acorn said:

I first think of the touch me not flowers, but I wouldn’t want it as an address.

Me too

[73349]

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Edited May 17, 2023 by 73349