to_number behavior change between 8.1 and 8.2

I am getting an error from to_number() in PostgreSQL 8.2 that does not
occur in 8.1:
   invalid input syntax for type numeric: " "
I assume that it is rejecting spaces, so I tried trimming with:
   to_number(trim (both ' ' from streetnum),'999999999')
but still get the same error.

Any suggestions?

Thanks,
Rich

--
Richard Greenwood
richard.greenwood@gmail.com
www.greenwoodmap.com