Comments on: Elevation Frustration

By: Poltergeist

Poltergeist — Fri, 11 May 2012 17:49:30 +0000

I agree. In my experiences, it’s also pretty easy to step over the pools of blood leaking from the stab wounds on the dead bodies. People have no right to complain.

By: The Elf

The Elf — Fri, 11 May 2012 14:48:29 +0000

The pee-ers are probably homeless. Or drunks. Possibly homeless drunks. Those are the usual suspects around here.

It’s nasty, but I generally manage to avoid stepping in the pools. It’s not hard to see them and step over them.

By: The Elf

The Elf — Fri, 11 May 2012 14:46:22 +0000

Many buildings block stair access to the first floor (except in emergencies, with an egress only push bar with an alarm) for security reasons. My current work place does not, but others have. If I wanted to use the stairs, I would have to take the elevator to the second floor, then take the stairs for the remaining levels.

By: ziblue

ziblue — Fri, 11 May 2012 02:24:24 +0000

Along with the issue of people who have mobility/health issues that make taking the stairs difficult to impossible…parking garages can be dicey safety-wise in general, but the stairwells? Especially at night? Yeah, unless I’m in a group, that’s not somewhere I feel good about being.

By: GojuSuzi

GojuSuzi — Thu, 10 May 2012 21:49:50 +0000

Team Secretly-Crippled here, too. I have a knee injury that is – all too slowly – healing, and while I can now walk most of the time without a discernible limp, my physio has declared stairs a no-go, as it’ll put too much stress on the joint (any more than five steps and I’ll wake up the next day with a watermelon-knee and be incapable of walking at all). I get scathing looks all the time using the lift, but I’m not willing to undo the months of healing for the sake of one walk up or down the stairs if there’s any way to avoid it, and in my case that would involve skipping classes were the lift to be out of order even for a day.

By: Isabelle

Isabelle — Thu, 10 May 2012 14:20:37 +0000

And you don’t even need a “physically can’t climb”-style disability to need the elevator. My mother’s vision has deteriorated a lot in the past couple of years and unfamiliar stairs in dimly lit stairewlls are hard for her (this would probably be different if she had grown up blind – it’s the “I was sighted for 62 years and now I have to readjust when I’m older and in poor health” thing) . It’s not that they are literally impossible, but they require a lot of assistance, she hates making everyone else wait so it gets her down and in general it can be a real buzz-kill on family occasions. Lots of people benefit tremendously from modern conveniences; they aren’t just for the lazy and slack among us.

By: Poltergeist

Poltergeist — Thu, 10 May 2012 07:37:34 +0000

I never understood why many places insist on blocking off what are effectively stairs. With all those stories of working escalators eating children with untied shoes, you’d think that a dead escalator would be a breath of fresh air.

By: JRS

JRS — Wed, 09 May 2012 23:16:05 +0000

Agree. Total c u next tuesday.

By: Seanette

Seanette — Wed, 09 May 2012 19:35:44 +0000

I’m 42 and have arthritis in my hips. Going DOWN stairs I can do, UP ranges from painful to nearly impossible, depending on weather and other factors affecting the arthritis. Total sympathy, Missbeans.

By: This or That

This or That — Wed, 09 May 2012 18:43:35 +0000

I LOVE THIS NOTE.

I find it hilarious that Ashley says the stairwall is “OCCASIONALLY home to pools of urine.” Oh, just on occasion? Oh, well then that makes it all better. I mean, how many of us haven’t OCCASIONALLY been in the stairwell and realized we just couldn’t make it the rest of the way without peeing in the corner? Answer? Oh yeah. ALL OF US.

Ten bucks says Ashley is the pee-er.

By: DaveGI

DaveGI — Wed, 09 May 2012 18:27:42 +0000

Well the ADA would mandate that you have a certain percentage of handicapped accessible parking spaces in the garage, but I don’t believe it requires that every level be handicapped accessible. So for instance a garage could put all of its handicapped parking spaces on the ground floor and still be in compliance even if there’s no handicapped access to the upper levels.

By: MH

MH — Wed, 09 May 2012 17:54:35 +0000

In all seriousness, I manage facilities and one of my buildings in Phoenix is VERY similarly named. I had a small heart attack when I saw this and almost threw a fit with my parking and elevator contractors. Glad I saw that it’s actually in Ohio, but if that happened in my properties, someone’s head would roll for a) not fixing the elevator, and b) not maintaining the stairwells. If you do want results, call the building’s management company. If it doesn’t work, call the city, broken elevators and unkept stairwells are both ADA and fire code violations.

By: Beatus Mongous

Beatus Mongous — Wed, 09 May 2012 17:19:14 +0000

This would have been funnier if your name was Bear Grylls.

By: Beatus Mongous

Beatus Mongous — Wed, 09 May 2012 17:17:33 +0000

I choose to use the stairs where I work for several reasons. Health is my first reason, but also because I have frequently found all sorts of bodily substances in the elevators where I work. Along with those, many of us have been stuck in our elevators several times, and some have had to be rescued by the fire department on more than one occasion. Here’s the thing that gets me, though:

There are stairs to go up and down from any floor EXCEPT to go from floor 1 to floor 2. The only options to go from 1 to 2 are the elevator and an escalator that has been “broken” for three years. Yes, to me, a broken escalator is just stairs, but recently, the building management has blocked off the escalator with barricades and has asked security to keep people off of the escalator. The ONLY option now is the elevator.

It’s not so much that I don’t like the elevator, but I don’t like not having a choice. If I want to walk up the escalator, why can’t I? This note is the same thing. Due to the lack of responsiveness by management, there is a lack of choice.