Casey Hogan had no idea her new address would be so frustrating.

But soon after moving into a granny flat in Van Nuys three years ago, she realized that the fraction in her house number — think: 101 ½ Main St. — was going to be particularly inconvenient in an era of constant deliveries.

Her packages get marked as “address not deliverable” or dropped off at the wrong door. Retail websites that are programmed to reject special characters, including the fraction’s slash, sometimes refuse her shipping address or auto-correct it to another location.

She has tried workarounds to this quirk of Los Angeles geography — most common in dense neighborhoods with duplexes or, as in Hogan’s case, at accessory dwilling units built on preexisting properties. Spelling out the fraction as “one half” has helped, but about a quarter of her packages or food deliveries arrive late or get dropped at someone else’s house.

In the case of a particularly urgent order before a flight, she had Amazon deliver a dog carrier to her mother’s home in Oceanside and drove there to pick it up instead of risking a snafu at her place.

“It’s still a nightmare,” said Hogan, 32, who works as a medical scribe. “Anything that could go wrong has gone wrong.”

In the increasingly deliverable world shaped by consumers’ skyrocketing, post-pandemic expectations that almost anything they want or need should arrive quickly and seamlessly at their doorstep, residents at more than 60,000 Los Angeles addresses like Hogan’s have been left on the sidelines. (Or really, left standing on their stoops, searching endlessly for packages.)

The shared inconvenience grew into a community on Reddit, where people swap tips, such as entering the address as a decimal — 101.5 Main Street — or spelling it out as Hogan does. One person made a more drastic suggestion: “Break down and get a P.O. box.”

Dealing with fractional addresses and other tricky deliveries, such as those behind gates, is equally frustrating — and costly — for retailers, logistics experts said, as well as for shipping companies that move more than 58 million packages a day in the United States.

The average American received about 70% more packages in 2022 than in 2017, according to a Capital One shopping research report. And a recent survey of 300 retail executives by the location data company Loqate found that almost 8% of first-time deliveries in the U.S. failed, costing about $17 per failed order — or roughly $200,000 a year.

“They have to deal with such a large amount of packages,” said Blake Droesch, a senior analyst at eMarketer who studies last-mile delivery. “This is not the post office of yore, where you could get an address half right, and the mailman will spend half the day trying to figure out who this letter belongs to.”

Since demand for deliveries spiked early in the pandemic, Droesch noted, there has been a significant shift in what people buy online, from items like new shoes or a laptop — things people didn’t mind waiting a few days to receive — to hygiene products and home essentials needed quickly.

“If you run out of deodorant,” he said, “you kind of need that the next day.”

Ram Bala, an associate professor of business analytics at Santa Clara University, studies the supply chain and is involved in a startup that will use generative artificial intelligence to improve shipping logistics.

Bala said it’s often odd little problems that sound simple to solve — in this case, figuring out how to accommodate fractional addresses — that end up being the trickiest.

“Anytime you try to fix that problem, there are unintended consequences somewhere else,” he said. “It’s a trade-off.”

Retailers don’t appear to be prioritizing a fix for people with fractional addresses, since doing so would require removing rigid formatting parameters built into software to ensure that normal addresses get entered correctly, Bala said.

In Los Angeles, which has about 1 million residential addresses, the roughly 60,700 fractionals are relative rarities. They’re concentrated in densely populated neighborhoods such as Boyle Heights, East Hollywood and Pico-Union, according to the city’s Bureau of Engineering, which oversees the handling of address numbers.

“The use of fractional numbers is discouraged and should only be used as a last resort,” a primer on the bureau’s website says.

A spokesperson for the city said the reticence to assign fractional addresses — which are often, but not always, ½ and never go beyond ¾ — stems from conversations with residents worried about not only confusing delivery drivers and visitors but the effect on property values. Still, it’s sometimes the best alternative when squeezing new units between existing ones.

The phenomenon isn’t unique to L.A.

Only about 60,700 of Los Angeles’ 1 million residential addresses have fractions.

(Marisa Gerber / Los Angeles Times)

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Pockets of other big cities where large, historic buildings were divided into smaller dwellings, such as New York and Philadelphia, also have fractional addresses. And in an even more complicated twist detailed in a piece by Colorado Public Radio, the city of Grand Junction, Colo., has fractions in its street names, creating perplexing intersections such as C ½ and 28 ¾ roads.

Despite the delivery headaches, fractional addresses can carry a whimsical charm, often drawing comparisons to Platform 9 ¾, the fictional London train stop where students in the Harry Potter series caught the Hogwarts Express.

But for Juan Crespo, who started the Reddit thread asking for tips about living at a fractional address, it was more annoying than alluring.

Before moving into a unit in a Highland Park quadplex in 2021, the 32-year-old research scientist tried to change his shipping address with online retailers he used frequently, including Southwest Airlines and Target, where he and his spouse had created their wedding registry.

But the sites kept rejecting the slash.

He eventually called and, after a wait, got a Target employee to manually add the “½” to his address; by then, he said, several gifts, including a $300 stand mixer, had already been sent.

When ordering from DoorDash and Uber Eats, he said, his address would often be automatically switched to a different location a few blocks up, requiring him to enter a neighbor’s address instead.

“It was just a pain,” said Crespo, who has since relocated to Michigan and settled into a home with a full address number. “I’m glad we don’t have to deal with that anymore.”

For Hogan, who lives in the ADU in Van Nuys, the annoyance remains.

A few months ago, she posted to an online help forum, asking Google to have her fractional address added to Google Maps, since many retailers use the company’s mapping software to handle shipping logistics, and a problem there can create a ripple effect of issues on other sites.

“I have to resort to entering my neighbor’s address and hoping I can intercept the delivery person,” Hogan wrote. “HELP!”

A member of Google’s Product Experts Program, a group of volunteers who answer questions in exchange for perks from the company, quickly responded to Hogan saying that only an employee can add an address with a slash to the map. A volunteer asked her to upload a photo of her driver’s license or utility bill showing her address, but Hogan felt uncomfortable doing so and abandoned the effort.

She can easily rattle off a list of packages that never arrived or were initially dropped off somewhere else: workout clothes, two pairs of shoes from Nike, a showerhead from Jolie Skin Co. And she has gotten used to filing claims with shipping companies after getting notifications with pictures showing packages left in unfamiliar doorways. She bought a Ring doorbell camera and enabled the package notification feature, so she has proof that a delivery never arrived.

So many of her food deliveries got messed up, she said, that she set up a rack outside her gate with a sign that reads, “Leave food here.”

These days, she prefers to shop in person whenever possible and thinks twice before buying anything online — a hesitance, she admits with a laugh, that comes with a silver lining.

“I guess it does save me money.”

TikTok is expected to make cuts to its global staff, in another blow for the popular social video app as it faces the threat of a new law that would ban its service in the U.S. if its Chinese owner doesn’t divest.

The layoffs are expected to affect employees in content and marketing and user operations, according to technology-focused news outlet the Information, which first reported on the looming job cuts. TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Some U.S. leaders have raised security concerns about TikTok and its parent company ByteDance’s ties to China. ByteDance and TikTok have said the new law “offers no support for the idea” that TikTok’s Chinese ownership poses national security risks.

An unnamed TikTok employee told CNN that the workforce reduction was not related to the potential ban in the U.S.

The cuts come as tech companies have shed their workforce this year to reduce their costs and, in some cases, prepare to hire more people skilled in emerging artificial intelligence tech.

It’s unclear how many layoffs will occur at TikTok’s U.S. headquarters in Culver City. TikTok employs roughly 500 people in Culver City, according to city data.

TikTok has launched legal battles to stop the government from going forward with its ban of the company’s U.S. operations. The firm sued the U.S. government and funded a separate legal challenge led by TikTok creators. Both petitions said the move to ban or force a sale of the app violates 1st Amendment free speech protections.

When Warner Bros. film executive Jeff Goldstein saw the huge sand dunes and expansive desert vistas of Denis Villeneuve’s first “Dune” movie, he thought to himself, “This was made for Imax.”

Same went for the sandworm sequences of the sequel, “Dune: Part Two,” a box office hit for the studio earlier this year that pulled in nearly 24% of its domestic box office revenue from Imax. The dystopian wasteland of this weekend’s big action tent pole, “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga,” brings yet more fodder for the big screen format.

Imax’s giant screens are expected to account for a greater-than-typical share of the George Miller-directed prequel’s box office sales. (The film is tracking to gross more than $40 million domestically for the four-day weekend opening, according to analysts.)

“It immerses you, so you’re there,” said Goldstein, president of domestic distribution for Warner Bros. Pictures. “Audiences look at Imax as something special.”

As studios and exhibitors bemoan audiences’ slow return to movie theaters since the pandemic, Imax has been one of the few bright spots. This year’s box office is down 20% compared to last year, when pictures like “Fast X,” “Barbie” and “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” propelled ticket sales, and yet studios are clamoring to get onto Imax screens.

Audience behavior has now changed, and getting people out of their houses and back into theaters requires something special they can’t get at home. That put Imax in a fortuitous spot.

The 57-year-old Canadian company, which operates out of Playa Vista, is coming off one of its best years, with Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” helping to fuel overall global box office revenue — marking Imax’s second-highest grossing year in its history. Films shown on Imax are reaping bigger box office numbers, helped in part by higher ticket prices, and that’s a powerful allure for studios and filmmakers.

Next year, 13 Hollywood movies slated for release will be shot on Imax digital cameras or film, beating a previous record logged in 2021 when seven so-called filmed for Imax movies came out.

The company hopes its brand awareness eventually looms so large that viewers come to its screens first.

“Instead of saying, ‘What’s happening at the movies?,’ I want them to say, ‘What’s happening at Imax?’” said Imax Corp. Chief Executive Rich Gelfond.

For Imax’s part, its financial performance in the first fiscal quarter of 2024 beat expectations. The company’s net income totaled $3.3 million for the three-month period that ended March 31, up 33% from the previous year, though revenue decreased by about 9%, to $79.1 million. Shares of Imax are up about 10.9% so far this year.

“While there are exceptions like ‘Barbie,’ it is very, very difficult to be a blockbuster without being in Imax,” said Greg Foster, a former Imax Entertainment chief executive who now runs an entertainment consulting business.

Imax’s current mainstream success is what Gelfond and his business partners envisioned when they acquired the company in 1994. At the time, Imax was essentially a museum staple, albeit one that allowed viewers to immerse themselves in the latest nature film or science documentary.

The company adjusted its screens and sound systems to fit in commercial multiplex theaters, allowing its business to grow rapidly while limiting costs (Imax does not own theaters itself, but instead supplies its screening technology to cinema chains). Imax also developed technology to convert movies to Imax’s format to make it more economically attractive for filmmakers and benefited from the advent of digital film, which made it more cost effective.

By 2019, the company had seen year-over-year global box office growth for several years and expanded its global market share to spread its box office almost evenly among North America, China and the rest of the world.

Like its movie theater owner customers, Imax was hit hard by COVID-19 business shutdowns. But because the company has few assets and little debt, it was insulated in part from the financial fallout that the rest of the industry faced. The company used the time to update its technology, including a new laser projection system and sound system, worked on its marketing and leaned more into local language films, Gelfond said.

Now in a post-pandemic world, moviegoers want something premium and special for their time, and they’re willing to pay for it. That’s a bonus for Imax and so-called premium large-format screens operated by the theater chains.

“In an industry that is constantly re-evaluating its present and its future in terms of competing with new media and bringing back audiences, it’s Imax that has been at the heart of the conversation when we talk about sectors of the industry that have recovered,” said Shawn Robbins, founder of analysis site Box Office Theory. “It’s been a way for studios to have reliability in an often volatile theatrical market.”

Walt Disney Co. has leaned hard into Imax and other premium large formats.

Its marketing campaign for “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes,” released earlier this month, prominently featured the Imax logo on billboards, bus stop signs and other advertisements. During opening weekend, 41% of the movie’s domestic box office came from premium large-format screenings, 13% of which was Imax, Disney said. Typically, a blockbuster that hasn’t been filmed on Imax cameras, like “Apes,” would do about 10% at the box office, Gelfond said.

As an industry, “we need to give audiences a terrific experience every time they go to see a movie,” said Tony Chambers, executive vice president and head of theatrical distribution for Walt Disney Studios. “Going to see a movie in premium large formats helps drive engagement and helps drive frequency.”

From 2022 to 2023, premium large formats made up 19% of Disney’s total domestic business; just before the pandemic, that total was 15%. Some of that came from 3-D screens, which have tapered off in popularity.

The company saw box office success with James Cameron’s 2022 sequel, “Avatar: The Way of Water,” which brought in $1.6 billion in revenue from premium large formats out of a total of $2.32 billion (About 11% of which came from Imax). Marvel’s “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” last year brought in 31% of its box office revenue from premium large formats.

Especially since the pandemic, there’s now more competition for people’s time and attention from streaming and social media, making it crucial for studios to give audiences a good reason to leave their couches.

“We need a way to cut through some of the clutter and make it clear to people that you cannot wait, you need to see this on the big screen,” Chambers said. “One of the ways to do that, from a marketing perspective, is to lean heavily into the premium large format.”

For a lot of people, he said, that means Imax. In fact, Imax executives bristle when people lump them with the other so-called PLFs, which include Dolby Cinema and ScreenX.

Imax box office makes up 13% of Warner Bros. overall domestic business, compared to an industry wide 5% to 7%, according to the studio. Industry wide, opening weekends are typically 10% to 12% Imax. But some are a bigger draw. The Imax share of “Dune: Part Two’s” domestic box office was 22%.

“It’s this whole notion of how do you hit critical mass,” Goldstein said. “Imax will help you get to critical mass faster.”

Imax’s future hinges on continued growth, especially internationally. As of 2023, the company had 1,772 screens across the globe, including its institutional theaters and museum screens, up slightly from the previous year.

The company also plans to expand, particularly into markets that it thinks are under-served, such as Australia and Japan.

“It has massive growth potential globally, and it’s certainly not at saturation in most of its global markets at this point,” said Alicia Reese, media and entertainment analyst at Wedbush Securities. “They should trade at a higher multiple given their growth potential.”