Curtain twitching from your PC (upmystreet.co.uk)

Member Name: sandrabarber

Product:	upmystreet.co.uk
Date:	13/10/01 (80 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: hundreds of useful links, genuinely useful information, great for nosey parkers

Disadvantages: not 100% accurate, Big Brother is watching you

upmystreet.co.uk is a superb web site which gives details about absolutely any street in the UK. It tells you so much, in fact, that it's actually quite scary. About the only thing it doesn't tell you is the colour of the underpants of the man at no. 34.

But it's not just there for voyeuristic pleasure (though there's a lot to be got, believe me!), it actually serves a really useful purpose if you're thinking of visiting or moving to an area, or if you're doing any sort of demographic research for whatever reason.

I'm in the process of buying a house and have found this site invaluable as well as entertaining in helping me choose where exactly I want to live.

When you enter the site, you type in the postcode or area you want to know about - and if you don't know the postcode, there's a link to the Royal Mail Postcode Finder to help you get it.

Once you've done this, you are taken to a screen with literally loads of options to help you find out more.

For instance, you can search the classifieds relating to that area in terms of homes, cars and general items for sale. I typed in the postcode of a street I fancy living in and then chose to look at the classifieds for homes for sale in that area and it came back in seconds with an up to date list of everything available. In fact it did in several seconds what had taken me a week to do by visiting each individual estate agent's web site individually and battling with their often malfunctioning 'search' facilities.

You can also click on 'find my nearest' which takes you to another menu where you can find the nearest restaurant, garage, plumber, hospital, dentist etc. etc. etc. There's hardly anything it doesn't tell you, and you can build a picture of a whole area in no time.

The site also lists the local authority of your chosen area, along with addresses and numbers of the different d
epartments. It lists the local schools, sports centres, recreational facilities and more and more. It even tells you on what day the dustbins are emptied on a particular street.

Now to the best bit if you're a nosy sort like me. You can actually find out demographic info on the inhabitants of a street, such as what kind of occupations they are generally engaged in, which TV channels they watch, how many cars they own, whether they're caravanners and if they generally have microwaves or not! It's based on ACORN profiles of typical areas so not 100% accurate, but it's very informative and can be spot on. It's bloody marvellous.

Since I've found this site me and my friends have of course searched out this personal info on our own places of residence and we have found it to be spookily accurate. Big Brother is indeed watching us and telling the nation what we had for tea.

If you're thinking of moving house, changing your child's school, paying somewhere a visit, this site is a massive help. And if you're just nosy, it's lots of fun looking at the personal info and relating it to your own and your neighbours lifestyles.

Go on, look yourself up right now!!

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