Are you of Asian origin? There are a lot of Chinese, Koreans etc in my city and 8 is a big good luck number with them; the more 8s the luckier the number.
Some suburbs have stopped having a house number 4 on a street, similar to that thing about not having a 13th floor in some places, because apparently 4 is the death number. I would have thought 8 would therefore be doubly unlucky, but apparently not.

Brunnen-"not superstitious, touch wood"G