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The no 13th floor thing is so indredibly ridiculous. People on the 14th floor of a "no-13th floor" building...you can kid yourself all you want. You're still on 13.

In Toronto, it's pretty common for condo buildings to have neither 4th or 13th floors.

My husband and I moved in together onto an 8th floor apartment when we were dating and got the best phone number 880-8884 - all by coincidence... at the time we didnt know the chinese symbolism for 8 is luck and prosperity. We had an awesome, prosperous 2 years in that apartment. When we bought a home we asked them to transfer the number. They couldn't. The house has given us nothing but expensive headaches since we bought it that are draining all our savings from the last two years. We're convinced it's got something to do with the number. We're not chinese but oddly, my husband is an acupuncturist and chinese herbalist. I definitely think there's something to the 8's bringing luck and prosperity.

forget the no 13...a negative 1? that i've never seen

my office recently moved to the 14th floor of our building - but really its the 13th floor. incidentally, my job sucks even more since the move ...i blame 13.

I'd be more likely to accept a job with a 666 address.

There is a long article in today's New York Times about the start date for the Olympics, and it revealed it had less to do with 8-8-08 being a lucky number and more to do with NBC not wanting them Olympics in September and the tennis federation not wanting them to end too close to the start of the US Open. So, the 8-8-08 start date just ended up being the lucky winner of sorts.

Interesting timing on this post. I just spent the weekend at a resort in the Colorado mountains. My room was on the 6th floor and I actually walked to the other end of the hallway just to see if there was room #666. There wasn't, the last room on the floor was actually 665! Would a developer actually scale the size of a hotel down (lowering potential profits) just to avoid a room #666? Considering I actually looked makes you wonder how mainstream superstitions are. I'm not superstitious, just curious.

I've been working on the 13th floor of my office building in midtown for 10 years, and I haven't spontaneously combusted yet. I'm not too concerned!

Also, the FTG (Former Teen Goth) in me wishes my street number were 666.

My mother was born on the 13th - so my family has always considered 13 a lucky number of sorts.

Note that the shanghai picture is not just missing #4, it's also missing #13 and #14...

I've always wondered that too, what's the point of just not labeling it the 13th floor, when it still is. Calling me a chef won't make my biscuits any better. I'm still not a cook.

I lived in room 666 in college and I turned out all right. Except for eating babies with a nice BBQ dipping sauce, I'd say I was normal -- just like everybody else...

I worked in LA County General Hospital, and still have rarely used office there on the 18th floor. The hospital has a 13th floor, but, its used as the LA County jail ward!

Is it just me, or is that Shanghai elevator missing floors 13 and 14 as well as #4?

When I was in high school, I went to a conference in a older hotel. A doorman and I were talking about the lack of 13th floor. He said that most buildings actually had a 13th floor but with super low ceilings and the elevator skips it. Basically to keep the "14th" floor from actually being the 13th floor. I'm not sure if that makes sense. I wonder if any one else has heard this...

I worked at a retail store that doled out employee numbers. One guy at my store was employee H666. He completely freaked and quit. He was coaxed to come back with a promise of a new employee number. A few months later, one of the managers asked him to drive to Home Depot on an errand; he got in a (minor) car accident and said he couldn't work and filed a worker's comp case. He didn't work until the case was resolved -- he was told that he couldn't stand for long periods of time (he was a salesman) so they made him a warehouse employee because there was a vacany. When he complained about that, they moved him to customer service where there wasn't even a vacancy but the managers had to put him somewhere. He couldn't understand working the computer applications or and was piss poor dealing with customers, so he eventually quit.

We thought the original employee number was ironic, but I knew a lot of people who didn't like their ID numbers and requested a change; they were completely miffed why their requests were denied.

so the shanghai floor 16 is really floor 13, right? this is hilarious.

for what it's worth, i've been eyeing a vintage suitcase on etsy but am a little hesitant because the combination was set to 666. it's been sitting in the etsy shop for a lon time.

As a humanist, this is the stupidest thing I can imagine. I struggle to be nice when people ask, "Are you going to celebrate your birthday?" on the years it falls on Friday the 13th.

I believe in science.

The Chinese word for "four" sounds similar to the word for "death", which is why they don't like to use it in house or phone numbers.

I think it's a little silly and wouldn't let it affect my own choices, though.

I was born on a Friday, the 13th, so it's not an unlucky number for me!

They don't like the number 4 in Japan either for the same reason that it means death. I don't really believe in specific superstitions, but I do like to think that I am lucky. And I'm partial to 3's, but I don't think that would affect a home buying decision.

In retail, people won't buy things that have 13 in them (13 magnets in a set, etc.) or things priced $13.99. Thankfully I'm not superstitious about numbers, but everybody has their own quirks ... I leave "13" out of designs whenever I can, so as not to deter anyone who is superstitious.

If I remember correctly, a baker's dozen -- something regarded as a good thing -- has thirteen of something.

I live in a thirteen story building. Instead of skipping the thirteenth floor, it has a ground floor and then a first floor, one flight up. that way the thirteenth floor is actually the twelfth floor.

I live on the first floor and spend a lot of time directing lost visitors to the actual floor from which they can leave the building.

Oddly enough, I lived at a 668 address in Brooklyn for over a year, and the house next door was NOT 666, but 664. 666 did not exist on the block. May have been because my neighborhood was West Indian, some superstitions, who knows.

I voted no, but like bepsf, I sort of consider 13 my "lucky" number, since I was born on a Friday the 13th. It's just sort of my little inside joke with myself, though... I don't really consider 13 to be lucky for me, I just like it.

When I was searching for my current apartment, I had the most tremendous stroke of luck in finding it-- it was the first and only one I even looked at, actually. Everything just fell into place: an unusual courtesy on behalf of the previous tenant meant the lease started then month I was hoping it would rather than the month I thought it would; the building was in the perfect location with perfect amenities and actually excellent management; the unit available had extra high ceilings, which only the units on that particular floor had. The luck continued when I moved in: I found out they remodeled some of the features of the apartment, making it much, much nicer than when I'd signed the lease.

Anyway, only after I showed up and saw it and knew it was right, I found out it was #207 in the building-- a variation of my favorite number, 27. I don't really believe in lucky or unlucky numbers, but the whole situation made me smile.

I'm not sure why the Chinese elevators skip 13, since it's a very lucky number -- at least in Cantonese -- but a lot of them do. Most skip 14, since the number is considered especially unlucky in China (it's close to "certainly die" or something similar in Cantonese).

The elevator in the building where I work (in Hong Kong) goes from 12 to 16. A lot of the high-rise residential buildings here skip ALL floors with "4" in them (4, 14, 24, 34, 40-49, etc.)

Vee, you actually BELIEVED that story from the doorman?!!

my apartment number is 113. i have no problem with that.

my driver's license number has 666 right in the middle. i had horrible luck with cars my first few years of having my license. i'm not a religious person but i'm not a fan of that number.

I don't believe in any of this stuff in the least, but I'm glad to know where to look for my next apartment discount! "Show me your unluckiest unit!"

I used to live in a tiny flat that belongs to my mother. When I moved into another, bigger appartment, I offered to lease it to a friend who had always said it would be ideal for him (as the flat it was small, but could be used as a home and an office for a small practice). The only problem was that the building was located in the number 666 of its street, and my friend is a professional psychic (a serious one, not the kind who wear purple ropes), so he had to pass on it, as the street number would a deterrant to his clientele! It's not that he believes on the numbers thing, but I'm pretty sure it wouldn't look too good in his business cards.