Another laugh at the expense of California, this news tidbit made everyone’s “offbeat” list.

The Oakland Tribune reported in January 2006 that developers in Fremont, California, are suddenly enamored of changing the street numbering system that has been used for roughly sixty years.

People evidently request address changes for personal or cultural reasons:

Residents upset by the small numerals outside their front door often complain when a four is present … [the city has] received requests to change addresses, unrelated to feng shui, from residents with three consecutive sixes on the side of their home, a combination some associate with the devil.

— Matt O’Brien: “Feng Shui versus address code” (The Oakland Tribune, January 1, 2006)

Developers are now worried that there will be more bad number combinations. They worry that houses with “the wrong numbers” won’t sell.

Where could they have developed that idea? Not from their local churches. No, they were infected by realtors claiming to have feng shui knowledge — like Lisa Coen in Pleasanton. Here is how she explains why her location (at 326) is a good one:

Six is also very auspicious, not only because it has the same sound as “profitable” or “luk” in Cantonese but also because 6 is twice 3 and 3 is a lucky primary number since it takes a minimum of 3 points to create a geometrical shape. Three is the beginning of all things and twice 3, that is 6, means progress and doubling of everything that you started with. For the same reason the three digit numbers 326 and 666 are also popular with the Chinese.

And yet, according to Wikipedia, “easy and smooth” is the homonym of 6 in Cantonese.

Coen’s rationalizations for numerology are intriguing, but there is another explanation for her liking the number 326: she is inventing as she goes.

And she is a Discordian.

How to sell houses with alleged “bad numbers”

People who are sceptics, scientists, and unafraid of numbers should buy houses with alleged “bad number combinations” to prove, once and for all, that house numbers have no effect.