Last week I show up for work, and the boss hands me Mapquest directions to a place. The HO wants a quote on new gutters and replacement windows. The HO won’t be home but has warned the neighbors that I’ll be there.
I follow the Mapquest directions to the letter. It puts me right in front of a nice single story brick home on a lake. The house matches the description my boss gave me.
I knock on the front door just in case, then set about taking pictures and measurements. When I got back I printed out the necessary pics and write up a proposal.
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Fast forward to today. The boss had an appointment with the HO to present the proposal. He is coming from a previous appointment, so he plugs the address into his GPS and drives up to the house. Right away he realizes it’s not the same house I took pictures of.
He gives the HO the gutter proposal, but makes up a story about wanting to confirm interior dimensions before he gives out a price on windows.
When he gets back to the office he questions me on where exactly that house was that I measured. Turns out there are 2 streets a half mile apart that have the same name.
Aside from wasting my time it was kinda funny. Good thing no one came home up at the house I was measuring while I was there.
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Has this ever happened to any of you?
Replies
It has been a fear of mine. So far so good. I can see how it can happen though.
Who are you people? And why am I strapped to the bed?
if you show up at the wrong bank and start jack hammering the ATM out of the wall, that might not be taken very well....
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"After the laws of Physics, everything else is opinion" -Neil deGrasse Tyson
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If Pasta and Antipasta meet is it the end of the Universe???
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according to statistical analysis, "for some time now, bears apparently have been going to the bathroom in the woods."
That right there is my biggest nightmare. I always confirm the address twice. I make a joke out of it but I want to be double sure.
We have had guys do that at convenient stores before. A couple of years ago two guys pulled one at the conference center. No alarm because that was that banks policy at the time. They were given an address, wen to the site called the coordinator. Somehow they got their Norths and Souths mixed up and they took the one across the hall. Security held the doors for them even.
The bad part is it took two weeks before anyone missed it. It had already been shipped off.
Who are you people? And why am I strapped to the bed?
what do they do with the money inside???PAR-TAY!!!.
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"After the laws of Physics, everything else is opinion" -Neil deGrasse Tyson
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If Pasta and Antipasta meet is it the end of the Universe???
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according to statistical analysis, "for some time now, bears apparently have been going to the bathroom in the woods."
You know, with a little bit of luck maybe one of these days I'll have a heck of a story to tell y'all. Show up at the wrong house only to find a couple of Swedish stewardesses sunbathing out by the pool...
Sounds like you aren't doing truss work any more?
I've had thread in the tavern about it. But here's the REAL short version:Got laid off from my truss job back in December. Had no job at all until I got a job at Wally world in May. Eventually I got a 2nd job at a Best Western motel. Then I got a part time job doing some estimating for a GC.Working 3 jobs 70+ hours a week was nuts, so I quit wally world. Now I work 16 hours at Best Western (where I'm at right now) and 40 hours for the GC.
Sorry to hear about the hard times. Hope things take a turn for the better.
LOL, that would be a long wrong turn,
thinking of how far away Sweden is from you.I would not trust the mapquest and google too much. It shows my house as being a half mile up the road from where I really am.
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
Not me, but we have had numerous cases of gas and electric shut off guys being sent to the wrong address. More in the last 9 years than ever in the company history. That is when we started contracting out that work.
It is one thing to go to the wrong address if the dispatcher screws up, but entirely another to disconnect someone when the meter numbers don't match what is suppose to be on that house.
When I lived in the country, the owner of the vacent 20 acre lot next door hired a guy to come out and bushhog it. The guy ended up mowing a parcel down the road.
Problem was the owner of THAT parcel had just planted 12" pine tree seedlings!!
Runnerguy
Yep.
Once flew down to a town I had never been in in order to visit a job site and ended up at an empty lot between a run down garage / tire shop and a pawn shop.
The addresses of the two buildings on either side of the lot were bookends of the address I was looking for - so that part was correct. Street name was correct.....
So I call the place I am supposed to be visiting and the receptionist tells me they are next to the library. My reply is "what library?"
Turns out that like you found, this town had two streets with exactly the same name. No north south or east west or anything to differentiate them - the exact same name.
Of course all the locals knew that so there was never an issue for them!
similar things have happened to me many times
here is a helpfull hint---always ask the homeowner what the nearest cross street is-- that narrows things down considerably
also difficult-- is the adress for a street-- that the street "starts and stops" many times.
different streets same names:-- my street is S. firestone blv--we also have N.firstone Blv.,E. firestone blv., firestone blv., firestone parkway, and firestone parkway ext.--all within about 5 blocks of each other.( firestone tire and Rubber built the neighborhood back in the 1920's)-- we also have TWO firestone parks---one is a city park and one is a metro/county park---and the neighborhood in general is called Firestone Park.
clear as mud?--- guess you had to be born here! Now if someone gave you an adress on firestone blv.-and you asked for the nearest cross street-- they might say Crescent Drive--in which case you would be SOL because Cresent touches E Firestone AND South Firestone within 2 blocks of each other
stephen
A company I used to work for had that happen. New home, scattered lot, our house had just passed the mechanical & electric inspections. Called the insulators and set up for that inspection.
Our lead guy went out to meet the inspector, and WTF? No insulation??!
The crew made a left instead of a right, insulated another home. Unfortunately, that guy hadn't begun his mechanicals yet.
Inspector was pizzed, but laughed when he came out to reinspect and got the whole story.
I had the problem this week.
Sent a guy to measure a house on the outside because I needed to price blowing in attic insulation.
I tell him address and describe house. I was going off memory on description. He went to the house I described not the address.
It was my fault.
We were 20 bags short for the blow in but like I said. All my fault.Wedding has been moved to November 14th.
Doing a small ceramony now, big party in the spring!
My SIL in S car missed a lot of UPS deliveries, because there was an identical named street in the next town over, about two miles from her. When I was there visiting, you couldn't tell when you drove from one twon to the next because all the same population density thereabouts.
But you'd think a pro UPS service would know after being told a few times.
The trailer trash living in the other house were the beneficiaries, never admitting that anything they had not ordered had been delivered there. It was Christmass year round for them.
Welcome to the
Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime.
where ...
Excellence is its own reward!
My wife planned a trip we took using an online map service. We pulled into San Antonio at around midnight. We followed the directions exactly and ended up in residential area miles from our hotel.
We arranged to meet some good friends from California who were vacationing on the East Coast, in Ocean City, Maryland for a few days together at the beach.
Before they left I made a BIG point of explaining there's an Ocean City, New Jersey and an Ocean City, Maryland and we were talking about the one in Maryland.
I think everyone reading knows where this is going. Suffice it to say our three days together at the beach turned into one day with my wife and I and two days with our friends.
Runnerguy
Details, details :) My wife and I went skiing with my in-laws. After the last run of the day we were supposed to meet at the cars. I go to the parking lot--no cars. Thought I was confused about which lot and clomped around in my unbuckled boots for a mile or so to check out other lots--no luck.This was before cell phones and I spent an hour or two standing in an empty parking lot leaning on my skis and watching the snow fall. Finally my BIL shows up. Everybody thought I was riding in another car. They get back to the hotel and finally meet and notice I'm missing.
Edited 10/31/2009 8:36 pm ET by CraigF
We used to have streets and roads named same or similar, but all that changed when our county and those surrounding us, did the emergency-911 thing.
The re-naming really got silly. They set naming rules that said, for example, no road name could have "north," "south," etc. in it. All short dead-enders, and we have a lot of these things, essentially big long common driveways shared by multiple property owners, but that get plowed by the towns, are called "ways."
Many have the name of an owner, as in Mary Pat Way, even if Mary Pat sold and moved.
All the roads that had compass points embedded in naming got silly renames. Examples: Northwood School Road became Norschool Road, West Valley Road became Wesvalley Road.
Go figure.
In NE Indiana, where we lived previously, all the county roads were named using numbers, with direction and distance from the county seat towns embedded. Most all the county seats sat about dead center in the counties. I guess you can do that when you take it over from the aboriginal folks, it is all boringly flat, and you set the surveyors to work before anybody gets to doing much place-naming.
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"A stripe is just as real as a dadgummed flower."
Gene Davis 1920-1985
Does anyone remember this?https://www.finehomebuilding.com/departments/great-moments/freudian-slip.aspx?nterms=106878
I do! It's the first thing I thought of when reading this thread. A Great Moment indeed.
Y'all should come to Atlanta, GA. 50 plus streets w/ "Peachtree" in the name. Further, the are not necessarily continuous. To really confuse you, they sometimes change names in the middle of nowhere.Where we live in Rural Dawson Cty, about 60 Mi N. of downtown Atlanta, the roads change names at the county lines - & are not marked. We live off a road that is a long loop; at one end it's Hubbardsville Road at the other it's Hubbardsville Circle. In between it goes through a horrendous bottomland that will rip the bottom out of your oil pan and leave you stranded in the middle of a ford running 6" deep in water.Gen Patton said "...great battles take place at the intersection of 4 mapsheets..." Anyone ever wants to see Armageddon, come visit us. We live at the intersection of 4 mapsheets; additionally, four counties come together w/i a mile or so & you cannot get out of our land w/o driving through 3 of them w/i two miles. Our western lot line IS the county line. Looking out our kitchen window, you look into the next county; it is also the next US Congressional district; The mail is delivered out of a different post office; and worse, UPS & FedEX delivery boundaries are our lot line.Never a dull moment!DonDon Reinhard
The Glass Masterworks
"If it scratches, I etch it!"
i know of a true story where a guy on a 955 Cat loader that tore down the wrong house. homeowner was devistated when he arrived home after work. the Cat operator was an old guy, it bankrupted him. both are out of a home.
I do remember that one, but I'm not as old as Piffin so you might want to check the date you used on the web-site
From Fine Homebuilding 177, pp. 174
January 1, 1900
I did see that; I was hoping nobody else would notice. I believe that's the default date if you don't specify. Dozens of old Great Moments were added to the site fairly recently. At some point we can get this fixed, but resources, as they say in biz-speak, are assigned to other tasks.
I can understand it being a low priority.... Just thought it was funny it was dated 1900...
Classic story! Thanks for the link.
Great story but I missed it in the mag. Don't have the January 1900 issue.
Runnerguy
Great story. When I was a subscriber, that was the first thing I read. Didn't know the mag was around that long. The story is inadvertantly dated Jan 1, 1900!
MikeInsert initially amusing but ultimately annoying catch phrase here.
I already noted that above.
But in the interim I did find the mag. Great article on the best feed for the "work wagon" horse as well as the article titled "Nailing lath perfectly parallel".
Nice editorial on lumber..."Old growth wood, who needs it?"
Runnerguy
Yes, we went through that in the mid-eighty's when our rural county named all the roads. Before they were just referred to by the state route numbers and we all had box numbers (RR 1, box 54 was our address).
Anyway, big bru haha. Mostly they went with historical names which were usually ok but then we had names like "Poor House Road", "Dam Road", and yes, "Landfill Road". They changed those (I wanted to substitute "The G*d Dam Road" for one example above)
And then, for some of the newer, smaller dead end type roads you talked about, everyone on the road got a vote. If you lived there you got a whole vote. If you just owned land there you got a half a vote.
Worked fine for us. Three big lots on our road with us being the only residents and owning one of the two vacant lots.
And then of course a certain small percentage was of the "Big brother is watching us" frame of mind and refused to use the new addresses. When we left in 2004 there was a nearby neighbor who still used his RR #. Thank God the post master knew everyone personally.
Doug
I am also on a rural route. It is a small private lake and for more than 50 years all places had dual designation RR#, Box number of one line and the development name along with the plat block letter and lots number.Those two lines where used on all mail. Then came the presorted bulk main and all bulk mail had to go through a filters of verified addresses. Some systems had did a better job than others. The many of the automatic mailing systems would see the "box" and drop the RR, and change the zip code to that for post office boxes.But both the post office and UPS and Fedex knew where we where and never have a problem with misdirected items no matter how bad they where addressed.Then about 25 years ago we got street and house numbers. The street names came from the block letters; block A became Anchor Dr and block B became Beach, etc.And the lot numbers where used for the house numbers. The only problem is that the numbers start at 1 at the dam and increase on the lakeside until the end of that block and then back toward the dam. Now there where a few lots that where not meant to be built on and they where given a double letter designation instead of a number. But some where built on, but on one side or another they was a house on 2 lots. So they where able to assign one of the numbers to double letter lot. Now this worked fine except the that the house numbers ran up0 one side and down the other and not odd/even like most places. Confused strangers, but otherwise no problem.EXCEPT!.The last first lot in block A was 83 and then the second tier started with 84. But after the water came up they found that there was enough exposed land to add another 1st tier lot. Since all of the standard numbers where used they stuck it at the end and it became lot 159.But a house was build on lot 159 back in the 30's. But over the years both lots where owned by the same people and when the street numbers where started the house was know as 83.About 5 years ago the the last spouse owning 159 and 83 died and the heirs sold the empty lot off (83) and some built a new house on it. And that house then was assigned 83 and the old house and lot was assigned 159. A year later the original house and lot where sold to someone who then was foreclosed on.Now the legal description was right, lot 159 of block A, but it also had on it "commonly know as 83 Anchor Dr" because as the time of the last sell that was what it was know as.So the owners of the new house at 83 come home and find the locks changed and foreclouser notices on the house..
William the Geezer, the sequel to Billy the Kid - Shoe
>>>So the owners of the new house at 83 come home and find the locks changed and foreclouser notices on the house.Oh man, what a mess.
Well I used to deliver Pizza and same thing Albert Street, Crescent , Drive, Lane, Way. Only gave a couple away.
Fast forward. Working as a nurse in the OR. I always asked which arm/leg are we working on, asked the client to put there hand on the side. Then took a pen and made a big X. Never did the wrong one. But did see traction applied to the wrong leg.Working as a homecare nurse in a rural area pre GPS. I have lived and dove and hunted many grid roads. Get directions to an old client's house in the middle of NFW. I got good and lost. Finally got to the old guys place. Showed him the discription to his house, I said I could not see the white barn on the right side of the road. He said " well eveyrone knows the tore that barn down 40 years ago, there is just a couple of stones of the old foundation now, but there white" Duh I re-wrote the directions for the next person who was afraid to drive on grid roads. You know It's just down from Henry's Mom's old place, or was that the old Anderson place?
At Mayo they're pretty obsessive about double/triple/quadruple-checking which side they're operating on, but I can understand why when you read about all the cases of the wrong kidney being removed, etc. Pretty unbelievable (but I believe it).
A strong nation, like a strong person, can afford to be gentle, firm, thoughtful, and restrained. It can afford to extend a helping hand to others. It's a weak nation, like a weak person, that must behave with bluster and boasting and rashness and other signs of insecurity. --Jimmy Carter
Does this count?
I had federal marshalls show up at my door, guns drawn. the correct address # but the wrong street. The street pole was a little confusing. The door is 2 1/4" thick with solid brick walls. I didn't hear anything but the knock at the door. I opened the door to a gun in my face. About pissed my pants. Not easy to answer questions that are being screamed at you while your shaking.
Later I had to "explain" to the neighbors what happened. The nosey neighbor across the street told everyone.
If that happened here--- sissie that I am---- i would probably have a heart attack right in my own doorway. think my wife and kids-- would get any money out of that?
stephen
No.Welcome to the new realities where jackboots have more power than our original constitution.
My brother had his apartment door kicked in by DEA agents in Atlanta years ago. Right number, wrong floor. No apologies either.
not measure, but we once roofed 1 + apt. buildings the wrong color. Put a 3rd layer on one, and ripped the 2 or 3 squares of the other.
No .
But I have measured the right place wrong a number of times.
us both...
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming<!----><!----><!---->
WOW!!! What a Ride!
Forget the primal scream, just ROAR!!!
"Some days it's just not worth chewing through the restraints"
But I have measured the right place wrong a number of times.
If it was the wrong place why measure more than once?"this dog may be old but he ain't cold. And he still knows how to bury a bone."
Lattimore
http://www.rehmodeling.com
Good point.
Wasted effort.
Life is Good
Ron
My brother in Kansas City came home to find a landscaping sign in his front yard.
Then he noticed that most of the shrubbry had been changed.
He called the company and they offered to come out and remove the new shrubs.
He told them to leave them right there and keep the bill.
Rich
...be thankful your boss didn't hand you a demo permit:
http://www.wsbtv.com/news/19715994/detail.html
I knew a guy who came home drunk, keys wouldn't work, kicked in the door and went to bed. Woke up the next day in jail. Wrong floor of the apartment building. Scared the hell out of the girls who lived there, who hid in one of the bedrooms.
Said he did 3 mos of work release for it. That'll teach ya...
One day last spring I'm sitting in the living room when I hear the sound of an extension ladder being set up against my roof, followed by the sound of someone climbing up it.
I locate my camera, then walk out the front door, looking for the culprit. He's on his way back down as I snap the first photo.
When he sees me there, he appologizes, "Sorry, wrong roof".
Being that he had a good look through my living room window, possibly checking the place out for a later burglary, I continued to snap photos as he heads toward his truck, getting the license plate along the way.
The sign on the truck says he's a roofer but I'm not convinced so I ask him, "Where's the house you're looking for?"
He points down the block to a place with a newly shingled roof, "That's it there".
Then, "Why are still taking pictures?"
"Well", says I, "I've got two choices here...take a few photos of you or arrest you for tresspassing. So it's either a camera or a gun, take your pick."
"Camera's fine with me", he says with a smile.
I plumbed the wrong house once upon a time.
It was in a new subdivsion with many new basement foundations waiting for the underground plumbing to be installed. Got the wrong one.
The street name thing is fairly common here - although they're usually differentiated by Street, Drive, Way, Place, Avenue, etc.
Last year, I was supposed to meet a contractor to bid on some cabinets. When I got to the address, I was a bit surprised to find apartments instead of a house, but decided to wait for him. About 30 minutes later, he called wondering where I was. The job was in another town 15 miles away. - lol (Note: He gave me the wrong town, BTW)
Not quite the same thing, but last week I had to drive out to see a client in central Minnesota, about 100 miles away. I looked up the directions on Google Maps, and then just for the heck of it I looked them up on Mapquest as well. It turned out that Google directed me to a dead end road in the middle of the woods, about ten miles away from where I was supposed to go. It was a good thing I double checked things.
I once drove 20 miles out into the boonies looking for a place based on MapQuest directions, when it was out on the main road.
Came home once to find surveyor flags at my lot corners. They located my corner pins, not my neighbor's, you know, the one with the SOLD sign in the front yard.
Similar, yes.
I used to worry about starting a new house on the wrong lot. I never did it, but I've seen it happen around here three or four times.
There was a case up in Minneapolis about ten years back where a guy built a house on a lot that the bank then decided to foreclose. They were licking their chops figuring they'd get a house "for free".Working in the middle of the night, the guy liberated the house from its foundation, got it onto a flatbed, and hauled it to a lot he owned outright about a block away.The banks screamed and hollered but there was nothing they could do. The guy had to pay a small fine for moving the house without a permit, but otherwise came out clean.
A strong nation, like a strong person, can afford to be gentle, firm, thoughtful, and restrained. It can afford to extend a helping hand to others. It's a weak nation, like a weak person, that must behave with bluster and boasting and rashness and other signs of insecurity. --Jimmy Carter
That sounds a lot more like a story than a case.http://www.tvwsolar.com
We'll have a kid
Or maybe we'll rent one
He's got to be straight
We don't want a bent one
He'll drink his baby brew
From a big brass cup
Someday he may be president
If things loosen up
DanH
If that wasn't a story, then the guy who built on the wrong lot and then removed the"fixtures" ( "An article in the nature of Personal Property which has been so annexed to the realty that it is regarded as a part of the real property..." ) has, in most states committed a larceny.
A word of caution, at least for Californa: you can not "un"-install your work once in place, even if you are never paid.
It was in Minneapolis, about 15 years ago.
A strong nation, like a strong person, can afford to be gentle, firm, thoughtful, and restrained. It can afford to extend a helping hand to others. It's a weak nation, like a weak person, that must behave with bluster and boasting and rashness and other signs of insecurity. --Jimmy Carter
DanH
I guess some states have weak real property rights and some have strong real property rights. I recommend you check your local statutes before trying the same gig.
I wasn't about to try the same thing. But the story was published in a reputable newspaper (the Minneapolis Star-Tribune), so I know it's true.
A strong nation, like a strong person, can afford to be gentle, firm, thoughtful, and restrained. It can afford to extend a helping hand to others. It's a weak nation, like a weak person, that must behave with bluster and boasting and rashness and other signs of insecurity. --Jimmy Carter
roofer i used here in town sent his crew out to a house ,tear off and replace.
ho got home about 3pm,asked what the are they doing?it's the wrong house.
so the roofing co. owner shows up,says he'll go ahead finish the back and only charge for that.acting like he's doing them a favor.
ho then states the roof they tore off,was only a year old,and he didn't like the color they used.your roofing the whole thing. even had the police out there,threating to have them all arrested for trespassing.
they ended up ripping off the new one off and putting another new one on.
address must of translated to spainsh differently.......................
the older i get ,
the more people tick me off
Last Fall i got a call to patch a roof on Ocean Ave, So i went to the house number, patched the roof and sent the bill.
Now All the homes are vacation homes.
Got the check Put it in the Bank.
Got a call after a couple of months that more shingles had come off so i went to the house again and could not find any off.
Neighbor came out and said it was funny i was fixing the roof again as the house was to be torn down for a new one, I asked What was the name of the people that owned the house.
Strange that was not the name of the people?.
OPPS i was on South Ocean not North Ocean.
Raced over to the right house , Patched It and called them and told them i Fixed it no Charge Me being such a wonderfull guy and all......
Thats hilarious.