What happens when Google loses your address? You cease to exist.

They all sat there for a few minutes, staring at the driver's phone, paralyzed by the startling gap that had opened between the app and reality.

This is how we discovered that Google Maps had two locations listed for our home. One was right, the other was wrong. It seemed like a fairly minor problem in the scheme of things, and it was. For a while, I even thought it was rather wonderful. We could be anonymous! Even Google didn't know where we lived!

But over time, as Google Maps was integrated with more and more apps, the problem got worse. Google Maps is used by Uber, Instacart, Lyft, Door Dash and even something called Zombie Outbreak Simulator.

The second most popular card app in the United States is Waze. Guess who owns Waze? Google Maps again! Soon, Waze also had a wrong address. In the end, almost everyone who tried to find our home was directed to the wrong place.

When I tried to warn people about this problem (don't go to the ghost house!), It didn't help. Google Maps is so accurate most of the time, and we depend so much on its omniscience, that it seemed inconceivable that it could be totally, totally wrong. People nodded and smiled at me, and then ended up in the ghost house.

Last December, we organized a Christmas party and half a dozen people (whom we know) ended up at the cemetery. Last month, a huge truckload full of wood waited for hours in the ghost house, unbeknownst to us, while two entrepreneurs sat around our house in an alternate universe, waiting for it to arrive. Once I tried to use Instacart, but the driver got so annoyed about the whole confusion that I was afraid to reuse it.

It is worth noting that the district is arranged on a grid. There is very little mystery on the map. And yet it was difficult for people to believe that their phones could be fake. It was almost as if people were expecting reality to conform to the map, rather than the other way around.

My husband and I have tried to correct this error several times. The only way to do this is to use the Google Maps editing tool, which has specific drop-down list options none of which apply to our problem. We did not need to add a missing address; we had to remove one.

But there was no way to do it, no number to call, no other box to fill. Whenever we have tried to correct the error using the existing tool, we have probably made the verification of the ghost address worse by flagging it for Google Maps.

Using private companies to create public infrastructure has advantages and disadvantages. It is a drawback. There was nowhere to file my complaint. Google Maps is sensitive to its users and, in fact, depends on all of us to correct errors and add restaurant reviews and photos. Every day, users provide more than 20 million pieces of information to Google Maps. In fact, it was a user who added our home address in the wrong place years ago, as it turns out.

However, when it came to correcting a user error, I was as lost as my missing guests.

I found an email address that you can use if you are a member of the media. I emailed this address. Then, as if by magic, I heard about a real sensitive human.

Two days later, Google followed up with an email: this classification error was unfortunate and has been resolved.

Google’s parent company Alphabet a valuation of $ 1 trillion. It would be easy for Google Maps to provide an email address to non-filers with ghost addresses to use. This would create jobs and reduce errors. But Alphabet is not a public service, it is a publicly traded company.

In my case, Google Maps also provided a statement from Kevin Reece, product manager: The world is a complex and constantly changing place, and our goal has always been to provide the most complete and accurate map possible. To do this, we especially offer users easy-to-use tools so that they can directly report inaccuracies or offer us updates.

Note that this statement did not recognize the existence of the error.

It’s almost as if it never happened, as if the phones were always right.

Amanda Ripley is a contributing writer to the Atlantic.