WE moved house last weekend and now live on a development which doesn't exist. My wife and I and our neighbours in the newly-built apartments off Chorley Old Road are quite literally persona non grata.

Two weeks before we finally uprooted from Bromley Cross I did what I thought was necessary by notifying the services, including BT, of our move and asked the Royal Mail to redirect out post.

A spokesperson at the GPO in Bolton said they would send me the necessary form to complete. It never arrived. That was the beginning of a recurring nightmare.

Professionals paid shedfuls of money to assess the effects of moving home say it is one of the most traumatic anyone can experience. I've always thought that judgment a little OTT. Not any more.

BT should have turned up between 1.00pm and 3.30pm last Friday, the day of the move. They didn't. The phone, dutifully plugged into the available socket, remained dead. In desperation I used my Pay As You Go mobile to try and get something done. I made five different calls and gave up at 6pm, at least £30 poorer as before you can speak to a human these days, you have to follow a string of instructions relayed by an android.

The final, desperate call, made shortly after 9pm on Saturday morning, brought an engineer around noon. We were reconnected to the outside world by land line and I could now get round to notifying banks, credit card companies, insurers, the DVLA, of our new address and phone number.

One would think that would be relatively simple. One would be wrong. This is the UK. Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. And it did. Big style.

Having spoken at length to the android, conducted the Berlin Symphony Orchestra and listened to Mantovani for most of Saturday, I was asked by a succession of people at the other end of the phone for the post code of my new address.

I dutifully passed it over but back came the mind-numbing disclosure that because it wasn't on their screens they couldn't proceed with the changes in our personal details.

By now on the point of collapse I decided on a last shot. Call the Royal Mail hotline in the hope that, after the android, I might get a human with an IQ higher than that of a nutmeg.

I got one. She told me that builders have to notify their local council when a property is completed and ready for occupation. The council then tells Royal Mail who in turn modify their post code data banks, to which zillions of companies have access.

Suffering severe arm cramp, and in danger of needing an operation to remove the phone from my ear, I called Bolton Council and spoke to a pleasant and competent young women (hallelujah) who assured me that she told Royal Mail about our apartment block in October of last year. "They obviously haven't upgraded their data banks," she added.

So, officially we don't exist. I never really wanted nor sought anonymity. However, one of my neighbours loves it. Mr bin Laden says he doesn't care if the Royal Mail NEVER upgrades its systems.