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Comment by willis936 | Hacker News Reader

Only one test per address. Multi-family homes are sol. Top on their FAQ is "sorry to people living in apartments. Put in a request."

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I was able to make an order to my apartment. And it’s four tests per address, not one.

I don’t see where it says anything about apartment-dwellers being out of luck in the FAQ.

One request per address*.

It's four, and you can still get at-home tests reimbursed by your insurance plan: https://www.cms.gov/how-to-get-your-at-home-OTC-COVID-19-tes...

Four tests are in one request. It's one request per address.

And every address with a unit number counts. What's your point? I live in a 3 flat in Chicago and each floor has it's own unit designation including mine. BSMT. haha

I live in a mfh that has individual units and got kicked back. Your anecdote doesn't negate my point: mfh have more hiccups.

It is based on the postal service database, so if your address was properly split with the postmaster or if you have a history of receiving mail using multiple apartment numbers at the same address... you are probably fine.

Seems like a reasonable compromise to prevent scalpers from using Apt 1, Apt 2, Apt 3, etc. at their house.

You'd think that, but that isn't the case. Look at the top option.

https://emailus.usps.com/s/the-postal-store-inquiry

https://www.cnet.com/health/usps-offers-solution-for-people-...

If your address isn't in the postal database you should fill out that form and contact them. Your second step should be to call your local postmaster and figure out what is going on. It is possible your landlord didn't know any better and just told you to use an apartment number.

Having an entry on a support contact dropdown simply means they want to route those requests differently than general support questions. It does not indicate that the problem is widespread.

My address is in their database. USPS has no issue doing their job every day. I filled out the form.

seems like it would be possible to allow placing the order, and have a human review before the items ship.

and what are scalpers going to do, compete with a free service?

seems like it would be possible to allow placing the order, and have a human review before the items ship.

Yes. A human to review 500,000,000 addresses. In a timely manner. We'll just tap that massive skyscraper complex full of surplus government humans sitting at computers not doing anything at all.

and what are scalpers going to do, compete with a free service?

Yes. They already do it with the free in-person COVID testing, by setting up fake COVID testing services and charging immigrants and people with poor reading skills who don't know any better.

i figured it was obvious to only flag human-review for multiple orders to the same address or an unknown apartment suffix. if the current solution is to have those users file a human-processed request anyway, this streamlines that flow and makes it painless to the user.

> A human to review 500,000,000 addresses.

No, many thousands of humans to review a couple hundred at most a piece.

"Huh, I'm supposed to deliver ten of the COVID test packs to this house. Nope."

> and have a human review before the items ship.

It's reviewed right before delivery... by the mail carrier.

"Hey, that's just one house, there's not 20 appartments here! I'll leave the other 19 test boxes in the truck and they'll get reassigned to legitimate addresses".

Worked fine at my apartment building. 123 Main Street Apartment X is correctly recognized as a different address from 123 Main Street Apartment Y.

Is it better to get tests to a bunch of people ASAP or wait until all the bugs have been worked out?

I am not expecting perfection, but I am expecting the people who need the resources the most actually get access to it. Sfh in sprawlland benefit from some at-home tests that would cost them a negligible amount?

As a YIMBY, I'm very cognizant of the benefits of multifamily housing. But apparently their system has some problems with it. Would it be better to wait until the system is perfect for all addresses or go with what is functioning now and get tests to people?

But again, your entire premise is wrong. It's not 1 request per physical building. People in apartments are able to get free tests from this just fine. You've made up a totally wrong hypothetical scenario and gotten all upset about what happens to people in your imaginary world.

How is my premise wrong? This isn't reddit, I'm going to need a bit more. People in mfh have more hiccups than those in sfh. How does this not advantage the advantaged?

I live in a MFH and we have 3 actual addresses for the units as far as USPS is concerned. Also for some stupid reason the units are #1, #A and #B but I don't think that's USPS's fault.

this is a larger issue than perhaps a lot of people think it is. huge numbers of low-income people (think the people serving you food) in high-CoL cities are living in roommate situations, where several independent adults share a single address, often subletting. i'm already aware of several people in this situation who have been denied an order by this website.

Our multi-family home is still "Unit 1," "Unit 2" and it understood that just fine.

If you have no division at all in your address then you're going to have trouble.

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