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The 13th Floor

BaronVonHoopla

Gone But Not Forgotten
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May 19, 2004
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I would like opinions from people all over . . . I live in Toronto (or Hogtown to some people) and in this area there are very few buildings built with a 13th floor. Or rather, they have a 13th floor, but they call it the 14th floor. Most people actually never think about it and somehow believe they are really on the 14th floor . . . this, to me, is the height of magick.

I've been told that in Vancouver, however, they skip (I think) the 4th floor, because 4 sounds like the Chinese word for 'death', and there is a large Chinese population in said city.

What I want to know is, do they skip the 13th floor in the US? DO they skip the 13th floor in the UK? What about everywhere else?



-Fitz
 
In Plymouth, Devon, there are numerous roads that don't have a No. 13 house number.
They skip from 11 to 15 or sometimes, an 11a is inserted where 13 ought to be.

I don't know whether it's the local authority being superstitious when numbering the new houses or the builders insisting that the local authority should be superstitious - whatever, it's a good example of mainstream paranoia.
 
I'm currentky based in Edinburgh but have lived in different bits of the UK and have never noticed an absence of 13, not saying it doens't happen just never noticed it

Gordon
 
It was always claimed the Biology Department at Birmingham University had a missing 13th floor for biological weapons research.

I've heard about similar missing floors usually where people get you to count the number of floors from the outside and then see how many actual floors there are so it can be just an optical illusion/misunderstanding issue.
 
Emperor said:
It was always claimed the Biology Department at Birmingham University had a missing 13th floor for biological weapons research.

I've heard about similar missing floors usually where people get you to count the number of floors from the outside and then see how many actual floors there are so it can be just an optical illusion/misunderstanding issue.
Ahh, that reminds me of jolly family holiday in Sochi (beach resort in Soviet Union) in the 80's. My dad and his mate were convinced that there was a hidden/ extra floor on our hotel... used by KGB (funny how cheap booze helps people to find these hidden things). They did the whole counting-the-floors-from-the-outside- thing and also found some "proof" by how long it took the lift to go from floor to floor (obviously between two certain floors the trip took longer). They did some other "tests" that nearly got them arrested, (I don't remember anymore, since I was about four at the time, but could I ask, at leat for laughs) but they still are very convinced that there was a hidden floor.
I just have to wonder why hidden floor. If the KGB needs a whole floor, why does it need to be hidden? I mean, just make it look like an ordinary hotel floor, but without any actual guests there. Seems less suspicious.
 
Interesting . . . so skipping the 13th floor is more of an Ontario thing . . . I wonder why people here are so supersticious?

I think I will take a walk around the downtown area this weekend and wander into as many skyscrapers as I can and see how many skip the 13th floor . . .


-Fitz
 
The building I used to work in (Leeds, UK) had a first floor that was designated the mezzanine with all the other floor numbers offset up to 12.

As I'm not aware there was anything structurally different about the floor that made it a mezzanine, I always assumed it had that designation to prevent the building from having a 13th floor.
 
I live at no 13

A lot of older roads have a 13...but many newer dont.

I was told this is because the number has a poorer value, but many estate agents pooh pooh this theory.
 
I've just been to a lecture on Luck as part of the Edinburgh Science Festivaland Richard Wiseman pointed out that his book on Luck does not have a page 13!

Gordon
 
BlackRiverFalls said:
The building I used to work in (Leeds, UK) had a first floor that was designated the mezzanine with all the other floor numbers offset up to 12.
Meaning of MEZZANINE
Pronunciation: 'mezu`neen

WordNet Dictionary

Definition:
[n] intermediate floor just above the ground floor
[n] first or lowest balcony
So that may well have been the reason, BRF, if the building had 14 stories in all. Then you'd go Ground, Mez, 1st, .... 12th.

(In America, that'd only work with 13 story buildings, as they use First for Ground Floor!)
 
Fitz said:
I've been told that in Vancouver, however, they skip (I think) the 4th floor, because 4 sounds like the Chinese word for 'death', and there is a large Chinese population in said city.

-Fitz

The Mandarin words for 'four' and 'death' are 'si', pronounced with differing tones. Hospitals will not put patients on the fourth floor for this reason. Imagine...

'I'm here to visit my wife, her name is Mrs Chang.'

'Ah yes, go up to the death floor'.
 
Homo Aves said:
I was told this is because the number has a poorer value, but many estate agents pooh pooh this theory.

I lived in a road that didn't have a number 13 and they were council houses so the selling angle doesn't apply there! think a lot of criminals used it as a false address as I lived at 30, which sounds a bit like 13, and was always getting puzzled police and court officials round asking if some stranger was in! (I had a cats protection woman come round once looking for 13 and thinking maybe it was 30 instead and she was mistaken, which put me onto the false address idea).
 
I live at number 11 and the house next to mine is 15. They are not council houses and were built in the 1960's. I think because 13 is classed as an unlucky number that people generally wouldn't want to live in number 13.
 
Homo Aves said:
A lot of older roads have a 13...but many newer dont.

I was told this is because the number has a poorer value, but many estate agents pooh pooh this theory.
Well they would, wouldn't they :D?

I have lived in a no13 - curiously, it was a cul de sac numbered sequentially, so no1 was next door to no2 etc around the loop. My current road doesn't have a 13 though: it's 11a.

I remember ages ago reading that very few buildings in the UK have 13 or 14 floors - the latter because of the British convention of naming the ground level storey the ground floor, and the second storey the first floor, which would make the top floor the 13th. Dunno how true that is - when I was in Housing though, all the blocks had twelve floors or less, or fifteen or more, which seems to tie in.
 
I am trying to rack my brains, but age is a terrible thing. I worked on the 12th floor of Sctland Yard and I am sure there wasn't a 13th floor. The lifts are seperated into 1-12 and 14-whatever (I never went above 12).
 
:?
I've seen elevators where the "13" button is a blank button, but still, people must surely realize, one more than "12", one less than "14"...
 
Curiously, in the flats where I live there is a missing apparment, although it is number 6 in this case.

The building is converted from an old nunnery, and the layout doesn't follow any logical pattern as they seem to have divided it up into as many flats as possible. So, we have an annex which houses numbers one and seven, two seperate extensions which are flats three and five, the ground floor consisting of flats two and four, middle floor flats eight, nine and ten, and the top floor which houses eleven, twelve and thirteen.

I thought at first that maybe two flats had been knocked into one, but the layout of the building doesn't support this at all.

Surely, if you were a superstitious property developer, you would omit the number thirteen and not six? Are nuns afraid of it, and stipulated there shouldn't be one in any subsequent development?

Seriously, every time I walk up or down the stairwell I keep looking out for a bricked up door or something to explain it. It's becoming an obsession with me. Can anyone shed any light on this for me? I don't want to hijack the thread, but I'd love to know and it is kind of related.
 
Perhaps relating to 666 being the number of the devil
 
Maybe, but I would have thought that the number would have to repeat three times for that, and I can't think how that would work.

A block of 12 flats, and you deliberately omit number six so you can have a number thirteen? I have it! A "Black Order" of Satanist nuns! that must have been it! :D
 
dreeness said:
:?
I've seen elevators where the "13" button is a blank button, but still, people must surely realize, one more than "12", one less than "14"...

I worked in a hospital in Tacoma, Washington (state) on the 14th floor -- which was really the 13th floor. The elevator buttons went 1 through 12 followed by 14 - no attempt to mask the evil deception. :p
 
Jolly Jack said:
Curiously, in the flats where I live there is a missing apparment, although it is number 6 in this case.

The building is converted from an old nunnery, and the layout doesn't follow any logical pattern as they seem to have divided it up into as many flats as possible. So, we have an annex which houses numbers one and seven, two seperate extensions which are flats three and five, the ground floor consisting of flats two and four, middle floor flats eight, nine and ten, and the top floor which houses eleven, twelve and thirteen.

I thought at first that maybe two flats had been knocked into one, but the layout of the building doesn't support this at all.

Surely, if you were a superstitious property developer, you would omit the number thirteen and not six? Are nuns afraid of it, and stipulated there shouldn't be one in any subsequent development?

Seriously, every time I walk up or down the stairwell I keep looking out for a bricked up door or something to explain it. It's becoming an obsession with me. Can anyone shed any light on this for me? I don't want to hijack the thread, but I'd love to know and it is kind of related.

What's the street number? Say for example's sake, it's 66 High St. Then that unit's address (at least in N. America) would be written 6-66 High St. Just a thought...
 
That's a damn fine idea, Bobzilla, unfortunately the building doesn't have a number, just a name. That seems to be quite common over here in the UK, especially with conversions of older properties.

Actually there's only about 20 houses on the road as well, so there wouldn't be a number as high as that.

I'm beginning to suspect a secret basement appartment of nefarious usage....

I appreciate your thoughts though, please keep 'em coming!
 
Actually where I live now is missing a couple of houses. I live at 7 which is the end of a terrace of three numbered 3, 5 and 7. There are two houses opposite which at a stretch of the imagination might have once been three but not four, these in the terrace are tiny too so no room for amalgamation, don't know what happened with the missing numbers, the houses opposite have names not numbers too.
 
OK, I admit it, I stole 'em! I stole 'em all!!!!!
And I'd do it again!!!

:madeyes:
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!



(Incidentallly, I have a few office blocks and private residences to let. Attractive rates, since every floor is the 13th floor.)
 
I can only recall being in one building with numbered floors that went up so high, and that was the towerblock in my old halls of residence. that had a 13th floor. I don't recall anyone thinking anything of it. The flats i lived in there had a number 13 as well.
 
Don't know if it's an UL, but:

In response to the Caught on Video entry. I actually saw this episode of Faces of Death. There were, I think 4 people at the top of a building (two guys and two girls). They decided to celebrate something, I think that it was graduation. They constructed the bungee cord secured it to both the building and the guy. They wanted to make the cord long enough so they could touch the ground. They figured that each floor was about 10 feet and they got off at the top floor which, was something like 17 or so. The guy jumped and hit the ground. They forgot that the building doesn't have a 13th floor and thus the cord was about 10 feet too long.

As in many stupid accidents, alcohol was a big factor in the screw up.

I found it here: http://www.bungeezone.com/disasters/club.shtml
 
I saw FOD a long time ago and that's one of the few segments that I remember, it's definitely in there more or less as described. Whether it's fake or not is another matter:D
 
I used to live at number 4 on a street with only three houses.
We also have a street here called One House Lane but there is much more that one house on it!
 
liveinabin said:
I used to live at number 4 on a street with only three houses.
We also have a street here called One House Lane but there is much more that one house on it!

I work in a profession where I have to regularly confirm addresses, and came across a street called "Queen's Bush" today!
 
Fitz,

If you want a little bit of excitement, go to the Royal York hotel! They have a floor 13, which I would say was definitely unlucky to stay on - unlucky because all the American tourists staying in the hotel all had to turn up drunk in the middle of the night on my floor and exclaim in very loud voices about how fricking freaky it was being on floor 13.
 
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