By Dante Spado
It’s a common practice that juniors and seniors move off-campus for housing during their time at UNC, and I am no different. In my junior year, I lived in Shortbread Lofts, and while my roommates and I enjoyed our time there, we decided to find somewhere else to live for senior year.
We house-hunted on Zillow for a few weeks before we finally found a place that suited all of our needs. We took a tour of it and signed the lease within days. Our new home was located at 120 West Stinson Street and we never could have predicted all of the problems that came with this address.
West Stinson Street is off of North Columbia, one street above Caldwell. It’s a great location for Franklin Street and for Campus, although those factors ultimately didn’t matter that much. It’s a small street with tight parking that predominantly other college students live on. There’s just one problem with it. The street just above it is called Stinson Street, too.
I cannot wrap my mind around this. These two streets do NOT connect. If I were to turn left out of West Stinson I’d have to drive up 20 or so feet and then turn right to be on Stinson. The amount of confusion this causes for delivery drivers and mailmen is ridiculous. On a daily basis cars come down to the end of the road where we live looking for Stinson street and then they realize they’re in the wrong place.
Even MORE absurd is that the house numbers on West Stinson and Stinson are the SAME. Yes, there’s a 120 Stinson Street at the end of that road to match our 120 West Stinson Street. I don’t know what city planner decided that, but it’s one of the worst decisions they ever made. The cherry on top is that the street sign for West Stinson reads “Stinson Street Ext.” It’s a street with two names that also match the next street’s name. Both come up on a GPS, adding even more confusion to the fire. We’ve had packages and food intended for West Stinson end up at Stinson and vice versa on an almost weekly basis.
Imagine being really hungry, ordering food and then being told it’s delivered. You look outside and there’s nothing there. Now imagine doing that for eight months. It’s infuriating.
This happened just the other day when my girlfriend ordered me some Insomnia cookies to celebrate an accomplishment in my life (to be revealed later). She texted me and told me to look outside, and there was nothing. The surprise had to be ruined because she explained to me that she ordered the cookies and the app said delivered, but the cookies weren’t there. I already knew what was going on.
She contacted Insomnia who told her not only did they drop them off, but that they called me, spoke to me and hand-delivered them to me. All lies. Thankfully, we met one of the residents at 120 Stinson earlier in the semester when three of my roommate’s packages ended up there and he went down to get them. I texted our 120 Stinson counterpart and he confirmed that he got the cookies, so I drove over and got them.
This isn’t the first time I’ve had problems with Insomnia (I think their drivers are a tad unreliable), but the problem was exacerbated by the confusion over the two streets. I love our house and I’ve enjoyed living here, but the address mixup is a constant annoyance that will only be solved by moving out and not living here anymore.
So, to whoever was the city planner that decided to make two identical streets so many years ago, I’m not mad, I just want to talk.