Pizza Delivery Hack: How to Get Drivers to Ring the Right Buzzer

Posted by Adam Kuban, March 31, 2009 at 11:23 PM

This is a super-specific "hack" that applies only to apartment dwellers—and, more specifically, to apartment dwellers in buildings with very few units. Like, with two or three units.

Anyway, I have a recurring problem. In my building, it's just me and my landlord. When I order pizza delivery, half the time the driver rings the wrong buzzer.

Yeah, when I call I make sure to tell them, "Ring buzzer No. 1. IT'S THE TOP BUTTON."

You'd think that would be direction enough, but often it's not. It's not a huge problem at decent hours, but late at night it ends up rousing my poor landlord.

So I made a little jig to make it nigh impossible for the driver to ring anyone's doorbell but mine. You can make one, too.

Just cut a button-size hole in half an index card and tape it to the buzzer panel. Make sure to draw on a HUGE-ASS ARROW pointing to the buzzer before you do. Voilà! No more false rings.

(If you're reading this, Jessica, remember this small courtesy and cut me some slack next time I host a raging kegger.)

7 Comments

Tags: delivery, hacks, pointlessness

7 Comments:

This is great Adam!

pizzaexpert at 9:18AM on 04/01/09

lol, this is an awesome idea. I don't deliver to any areas like this but I do know that people give "driver directions" all the time and we never get them. Mostly the Boppers just forget to type them into the computer.

apizzagirl at 12:36PM on 04/01/09

You should really put a patent on this. It could be the next snuggie.

JudgeFudge at 1:02PM on 04/01/09

Instead of
1 ->
why not write
PIZZA ->
?

Or, move away from NYC and completely give up on pizza delivery.

pizzalogist at 1:21PM on 04/01/09

@ Kuban: Please tell me your landlord's name is Lipshitz. =P

Unintentional humor at its finest. And yes, sometimes I *am* still in 3rd grade.

cxg231 at 5:32PM on 04/01/09

Now can you invent something that will keep them from pulling up the driveway when the delivery instructions say "DO NOT PULL UP DRIVEWAY "?

I'm tired of having drivers get pissed at me because they didn't bother to read and scraped their bumper/oil pan/ground effects on my insanely steep driveway...

cowprintrabbit at 6:38AM on 04/02/09

Wow, the drivers actually go up to the door where you live? Seems like starting about 5 years ago, around here, they just pull up in front of the building, and call from their cellphones saying 'I'm here, come get it.'

ratbuddy at 12:52PM on 04/02/09

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