Many towns and counties in New Jersey have local laws requiring address numbers to be displayed at homes and commercial buildings, but there's no statewide mandate.
That can cause problems.
Even with your GPS getting you close to it, locating an unfamiliar building can be difficult. Without seeing the address number you can't be sure you're at the right place.
Belmar Mayor Matt Doherty says it's more than an inconvenience.
"It's not necessarily about ordering a pizza and the delivery guy can't find out where it's at. If it's a real emergency whether it's a fire truck or a police car or an ambulance, that they know what address they're going to by following other numbers as well. You could be putting someone's life at risk and for what reason because you were too lazy to put your numbers on?"
Not having numbers posted can also jam up traffic, says Cathleen Lewis with Triple-A Northeast.
"When you're trying to find someplace, it's hard to find it. That can mean that those motorists are driving too slowly. That can create a risk of crash because other drivers aren't going to know that. They could make sudden turns, again that could increase your risk for crash."
NJ Building Officials Association president Pat Naticchione says even the people doing building inspections sometimes have trouble finding the right house.
"It's a lot better than it used to be. I know some 30 odd years ago doing this it used to be real hard when you were driving down the street and there would only be one house. Now you might have that occasional one or two houses that the only ones that don't have the addresses. Most of the municipalities I've worked in now most of the addresses are up."
Naticchione says commercial buildings often lose numbers when a business moves out and strips the numbers from the building along with its name.
Toms River Police Chief Mitch Little says advances in GPS technology have helped police find buildings that don't have the number displayed.
"Luckily, we have new advances with GPS where we can actually locate houses with Quick Streets or other programs that are in our computer-aided dispatch system, records management system in the police cars, where we can actually go right to the house, but not everybody has that."
Little's town has its own law that requires the address numbers to be displayed. He would like to see it mandated statewide.
Little says requiring the address numbers to be the same size and type in all communities and making them reflective would make it easier for everyone, but there’s no pending legislation to do that.