The trouble with stairs

Over the past few years I’ve come to view the stairs in my house as a problem.

Growing up in North Queensland, stairs are a fact of life.  Except for a couple of years when I lived in a ground-floor unit, I’ve lived in high-set homes all my life. 

In the last few years, however, I’ve been seriously questioning the logic of any house design that renders the living areas accessible only by stairs.

It’s all well and good if you are young and fit and mobile and can bound up those stairs with vim and vigour… but the older you get, the more potential those stairs have to make getting in and out of your own home a problem.

My grandmother spent the last few years of her life virtually house-bound because the stairs became more and more of an obstacle for her.  By the time it got to the stage that we had to install a chair lift to get her up and down the stairs, getting out of her own house had become an event in itself.

Not only did she only leave the house when the occasion was worth the exertion – she almost never spent time in her own gardens because the effort it took to get to the lift (which was installed at the front of her house) and get around to the back yard was simply too much for her. 

Without those stairs, she could have just walked out her back door and spent time surrounded by trees and things.  Or, if she wanted to go out, she could have just walked out the front door and saved her energy for getting in and out of the car.

I honestly believe she would have had a better life if she had moved to a low-set house (with few or no stairs) in her sixties. 

In her sixties, she was still young and spritely enough that a move would have been something she could tackle with energy and enthusiasm.  In her late 70s, she was stubborn and grumpy and her health was shattered from 50-odd years of heavy smoking.  She was entrenched and determined to die in her own home (which didn’t happen) and resistant to any suggestion of moving – even though, in hindsight, that house was seriously bad for her quality of life.

For the past year or so, we’ve been watching my old dog struggle with the stairs in this house.  She slept downstairs and spent most of the day there, but when we were home she loved nothing better than to come up stairs and be near us – in the living space where we spent most of our time.

We’d been wondering what we would do when she could no longer make it up and down the stairs.  After all, you can’t install a chair lift for a dog – but being left downstairs would have made her miserable.  Additionally, she’d been very unstable on her feet, coming up and down the stairs.  Yet we had to make her go downstairs on a regular basis to pee, or go out for a walk, or go to bed...  We were honestly wondering if she would fall down the stairs and break her neck before she got to the point where she couldn’t make it up or down the stairs at all.

Well, a couple of weeks ago she tumbled down the stairs and did herself some serious harm.  So serious, we had to put her down. 

I know – deep in my soul, I know – that her quality of life and her length of life would have been vastly improved if we didn’t live in a house where the living areas were only accessible by stairs.  And I’m at the point where I know (deep in my soul, I know) that I could say the same for my grandmother.

It really brought home to me the fact that smart people don’t grow old (and don’t let their loved ones grow old) with what amounts to a feature of an obstacle course built into their own home.

When you are young enough to climb stairs or walk up hills without a problem, you don’t care about this sort of thing.  Heck, you could enter via rope ladder and exit via fireman’s pole, if that’s what you wanted to do.  But the minute you find yourself regularly getting to the top of your stairs (or steep driveway) and feeling a bit worn out by the experience, it’s time to move on.

My mother is in her sixties.  She’s still young enough and spritely enough to tackle a move with energy and enthusiasm – and she has arthritis in her hips and knees and regularly notices the effort it takes to get up and down the stairs.  Because I love her, I’m going to keep pestering her until she sells up and moves to a more practical house. 

This house has been in the family for almost 50 years and I love it, but I’m not going to let it swallow up the lives of anyone else I love.  It’s time to go.

If someone you love is living in a house with stairs (or any other obstacles), do what you can to push them out before they get stuck there.  They’ll never notice how much better they have it, but you will be giving them better quality of life in their later years.