How can I create a free physical address mailing list

March 23, 2006 12:13 AM

Does any one know how I can create a free, accurate mailing address list for every house in our town of 5200 people?

The list would be used not for mailing but for door-to-door recruitment for our block watch group. We would like a list to track if we have visited a house or not. The list would also be used to quickly locate a house within one of our 4 wards.

posted by frogmoses to society & culture (8 comments total)

Voter's registration lists, which may be free or quite expensive in your jurisdiction.
posted by orthogonality at 12:15 AM on March 23, 2006

You might check to see if your town has a public tax roll in some usable form. In some jurisdictions, it is organized by deed reference, which is not too useful, but in others, there is a ready cross-reference to street address, or to mailing addresses of property owners, used for mailing tax bills. In towns or areas with significant rental property areas, many of the tax bills will actually go to other addresses, where the owners actually reside.
posted by paulsc at 1:14 AM on March 23, 2006

5200 people isn't a whole lot of people. Shouldn't be that tough.

Where exactly are you located? If we know the town we could probably point you at a source online.
posted by bigmusic at 1:47 AM on March 23, 2006

The Phone Book. Might not hit every last person but you will get most of them. I would wager more people are listed in the phone book than are registered to vote.
posted by sophist at 2:32 AM on March 23, 2006

Do you need a list of houses and the names of their residents, or just a list of houses?
posted by nebulawindphone at 3:38 AM on March 23, 2006

Thanks for the comments so far. I would only need a list of house addresses, not the names of people.
posted by frogmoses at 4:34 AM on March 23, 2006

Most places have online contact information these days. For example, if you lived in Northampton County, PA, you could write, call, fax, or email to:

Northampton County Voter Registration
Governor Wolf Building
45 North 2nd Street
Easton, PA 18042

Phone [phone]

Fax [phone]

Email: [e-mail]

Or maybe drop in here:

Northampton County Government Center
Assessment Division
669 Washington Street
Easton PA 18042-7477

posted by pracowity at 4:39 AM on March 23, 2006

You can't do it for free with 5200 people. Any organization, public or private that holds that information, is going to charge you for something. Your best bet is to check with the County Clerk's office -- they will likely only charge you a nominal fee. For a CD of addresses in parsable format here in Louisville, KY, I think it is $25 up to 10,000. The cheapest commerical service for the same info is around $500.
posted by mrmojoflying at 5:44 AM on March 23, 2006