Travel with Angela Lansbury: Finding The Correct Addresses Worldwide - Could Be A Matter of Life and Death, in the USA

Schools should teach map reading and the streets in a city which have similar names. Time for a board game which plays this?

You can use streetview to find out what your destination looks like.

In the UK we once arrived an hour late at a dinner. Why? Because we looked up a street name in London and went to an identical street with a different postcode

If in doubt, ask a passerby. Ask twice.

In London an American asked me, 'Which is the way to Oxford?'

I told him, 'You need to walk down to the station and take a train.'

He said, 'I was told it was in walking distance, a few yards away'.

I said, 'You mean Oxford street?'

USA

In the USA in 2023 a boy called Ralph Yarl was shot after going to the wrong house.

In the evening hours of April 13, Yarl had been sent to pick up his siblings from an address in the 1100 block of NE 115th Terrace. He mistakenly went to a home less than a block away on NE 115th Street .

Terrace or street?

We live in London in a H ...ROAD. We frequently get mail or parcel deliveries clearly addressed to H....CLOSE.

Door latch

You can buy a door latch from Amaxon for about twenty pounds, and a portable door latch to take to hotels, or rental places.

Door latch from Amazon.

It is easy to go to the wrong address. The party inside is so loud that the people don't answer when you call. The house number is obscured. Several local roads have similar names, green road, green street, green drive, green hill, green lane, green avenue. We get wrong deliveries all the time due to mixed up addresses.

Houses should have clear numbers. Streets should have clear names, and arrows to other streets with similar names.

In the USA people going to the wrong house get shot. Two this week. April 2023. A girl called Kaylin Gillis died. She was in a car.

Ralph Yarl lived. He had walked up to the front door.

How can we stop this happening? If every driveway was gated, with an intercom, anybody at the wrong house could simply speak to the home owner and be re-directed. Without going anywhere near the front door or front windows or back door.

Doorcam

When I searched for Doorcam in Singapore I was directed to a sales page offering an item at just under 500 dollars. However, I found doorcams around 50 dollars on the major suppliers such as Lazada and Amazon. The American popular one is Ringcam.

Many condos offer doorcams as standard. It is a selling point for buyers, and renters.

The moral is, check the address. Check the house number. Check the street name. Check the postcode. Check the distance from the nearest landmark. Phone when you get near. Ask the people you are meeting to stand at the door. Or ask the colours of two items.

If all the houses in the street look the same, then what? Banners? Balloons?

Party

When we had a party for a five year old, we put balloons outside. Unfortunately, another family in the looped road also had a party. A little Japanese girl spent the whole afternoon at the wrong party. Her aunt collected her, and had to retrieve the gift, and bring it to us.

It is easy to get lost.

In the UK if you knock at the wrong house, usually somebody will redirect you.

In the USA, it is a different matter.

When children or teenagers deliberately set out to annoy, or frighten, householders, the results can be serious.

Knock and Run (Ring and Run in the USA)

This so-called game goes by many names including Ding Dong. It is not fun for the householder. They could be called out of a bath, have their TV or movie interrupted, and be terrified that a stalker, burglar or worse is going to escalate the nuisance.

Do not allow your children to play knocking on doors for annoy people for fun.

It happened to me, once. I was called out of the bath. Summoned from watching my movie. Had a phone call interrupted. Was alone and terrified. Eventually, I stood behind the door, waited and watched. Would it be dangerous to answer?

When the doorbell rang, I heard feet scamper away. I flung open the door and chased after them. They disappeared into the house next door. I phoned my neighbour and told her what had happened and asked her if anybody in the house knew the culprits.

They had left. They were other children from further up the road, who had been visiting.

She came round to see me. I was clearly shaking, upset, almost in tears.

She phoned the other mother.

Next day she phoned to say that the children had been told to write a note apologising for disturbing and upsetting me. She asked if she could deliver the note or if I would prefer the children to come and see me.

I did not want to see them.

She delivered the note.

End of story.

But not in the USA. I won't go into trespass and stand your ground but you can look up the rules in the USA and any other country where you are living of visiting.

Wikipedia reports

Michael Bishop, a 56-year-old man in Louisville, Kentucky, shot at a group of children playing ding dong ditch at his house on 13 June 2011. A 12-year-old boy was hit in the back with a shotgun blast and "the boy was taken to Kosair Children's Hospital with what police call non-life-threatening injuries". The shooter was charged with attempted murder.^[18] On 8 December 2015, his final day in office, outgoing Kentucky governor Steve Beshear issued 197 pardons,^[30] including a pardon for Michael Bishop.^[31]

A 14-year-old Oklahoma teenager, Cole Peyton, was shot in the back and arm while playing "ding dong ditch" in the early hours of New Year's Day of 2016.^[32]^[33]

Dean Taylor, a 63 year old coach and former San Francisco Police Department officer, was arrested following an incident involving an 11-year-old boy who rang his doorbell in San Rafael, California on 12 February 2021. After two boys rang his door and ran, Taylor chased the boys in a vehicle, cut off one of the youths and emerged from the car. Then he allegedly grabbed one 11-year-old boy by the neck, pushed him to the ground and forced him into his vehicle. He drove the terrified boy around the block, and allegedly told the boy that he would "put a bullet in his head" if the prank happened again. He dropped the boy off near Point San Pedro Road and Loch Lomond Drive, and police were called. Taylor faces felony charges including kidnapping, making criminal threats, false imprisonment, battery and child endangerment.^[34]

A California man, Anurag Chandra, 42, faces several murder charges for his role in the Temescal Canyon Road crash on 24 January 2020. After one of the boys had been dared, all six teenagers drove to a nearby home on Mojeska Summit Road in Corona, about 50 miles southeast of Los Angeles. The boy rang the doorbell and returned to the 2002 Prius that they were riding in, and the group took off. Chandra, who lives at the home, chased after them in his 2019 Infiniti Q50. His car rammed into the back of the Prius, causing it to veer off the road and into a tree. Daniel Hawkins, Jacob Ivascu and Drake Ruiz, all 16-year-old passengers, were killed in the crash. The 18-year-old driver and two other boys, ages 13 and 14, were injured but survived.^[35]

Burglary

Do not let your family be criminals who knock on doors before burglary. If this behaviour becomes common in a neighbourhood, eventually people get shot just for ringing the wrong doorbell, even if it is just to ask the way.

Finding The Right House

Of course, neither Google Maps nor a satnav will take you to the right building if you have confused street, road, close and terrace, or the postcode.

Does spelling matter? Does grammar matter? Does accuracy matter? Does the correct street name or postcode matter. Yes, it can be a matter of life and death.

Today I had a Whatsapp message telling me to go to a Toastmasters International meeting in one area. But the meeting programme gave a different address. I had to contact three people to sort this out. In the end, I did not go. Apparently, the club alternates venues.

Two ways you can help people.

1 Firstly, by being willing to turn up to an event, or drive somebody to and from the event.

2 The other way is to ensure that they have the right address and do not waste time going to another place with a similar name.

This is not the first time it has happened in the USA. Another famous case, well known in Japan, was Yoshi Hatori. Halloween.

It was Halloween. Don't arrive dressed like a ghoul on somebody's doorstep.

Take care

If you go to the wrong terminal at an airport you could miss your flight. Go to the wrong address, and you could miss your dinner reservation at a restaurant.Go to the wrong address for a party or to collect your friend in the USA you could be shot by the householder. . . Go to the wrong place in wartime and you could be captured by the enemy.