An extremely odd Watsonia North street number anomaly has been traced to the superstitious town planner that mapped out the suburb when it was initially subdivided. The intrigue centres around the curiosity that many streets in the tranquil suburb do not have a number 13 block and/or house, with many of them simply skipping from 11 to 15, perhaps to avoid the allegedly unlucky number of 13. Don’t believe us? Jump on over to Google Maps and check it out.

Preliminary investigations into the true reason behind this strange omission have uncovered that the man responsible for the subdivision of Watsonia North, the late Sir Kenneth Plannington, was intensely superstitious – and possessed a strong aversion to the number 13. In fact, one of Sir Plannington’s co-workers revealed that the legendary cartographer was, indeed, into some weird stuff.

The co-worker, who requested strict anonymity, told us, “Oh yeah, old Kenny Boy was really superstitious. Always stepped over the cracks in the pavement, never left his shoes on a table, was terrified of black cats, and really struggled to walk through the ladder section at Bunnings. He even kept a pack of tarot cards in the top draw of his desk, and often made big decisions by shaking his magic 8-ball.”

While Sir Plannington seemed to have stuck with convention during the early days of his town planning career, some sources within the subdivision industry claim that he went a bit rogue in his later years. One such source said, “Kenny basically did as he pleased towards the end. I think he mapped out Watsy North around the early 1980s, which was a time of peak oddness for him. He walked into the office one morning and just announced, ‘Gather round people, because today is the day. For years I’ve reluctantly marked out the hideous number 13 on suburbs all over this vast country, but the grand boulevards of Watsonia North will not be cursed by such circumstances. There shall not be a resident of Watsonia North that will have to live in the infamy of a number 13 on their letter box. This new suburb will be free of bad omens and heinous happenstance.’ And that was it. He sat down at his desk and finished mapping out the area, laughing conspiratorially as he went. It was all quite strange, really.”

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