The family next door uses my address for grocery deliveries because GPS sends drivers to their alley. How do I make it stop?

The first grocery order arrived at my porch by mistake. The second arrived there on purpose.

My next-door neighbors live in a converted rear house whose official entrance faces an alley. Delivery apps often send drivers to the wrong block. After losing a few orders, the family began entering my street address and adding “house in back, blue gate” to the instructions.

In practice, drivers stop at my house, unload bags onto my porch and ring my bell. Some read the note and carry everything around the side. Many do not. I have texted the neighbors about eggs, bottled water and once a bag of melting frozen food waiting by my door.

At first I treated this as a harmless workaround. Their address is confusing, and carrying a bag next door is not a crisis. The pattern became a problem when orders started arriving early in the morning and after 10 p.m. Last Sunday, a driver called through my door asking me to confirm a customer name I did not recognize.

I asked the neighbor if they could stop using my number. She apologized and said the app cancels orders when they enter their real address. She promised to improve the delivery note. That misses the part that bothers me: my home is still the official destination, so the burden of a failed instruction lands at my door.

I do not want to threaten them or report the account. I also do not want to become an informal receiving desk because an app cannot map the alley. They may have other options—meeting the driver at the street, using a nearby landmark, or contacting the service—but those are for them to work out.

My partner wants to send one clear message: “Please do not use our address for future orders. We cannot accept or monitor deliveries.” He also wants us to stop texting when bags arrive. I agree with the message. I am less sure about leaving groceries outside when I know who ordered them.

The neighbors are kind people, and the problem is administrative rather than malicious. That makes the boundary feel harsher, not less necessary. Every rescue teaches the system that our porch works.

Would you give a final date after which you will no longer alert them, or ask them to change it immediately? If another order arrives after that conversation, do you knock next door one last time, tell the driver the address is wrong, or simply leave it where it was delivered?