Stairs of death

[pphaneuf]

Here are a few pictures of the "stairs of death" I have mentioned to a few people...


Note the funky "Art Deco" (I think) design, where I hit my toes every other time and feel rather uneasy carrying big heavy luggage upstairs.


Now, this is where they really earn their name. There's space on both sides, so you can plummet to your death, and no railings to help you out (remember, this is the bedroom upstairs, picture yourself trying to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night!). Finally, the "pitch" of the steps is really small, so there's like only half my foot that fits on those steps, not nearly enough to make me feel sure-footed. So I walk like a penguin.

Comments

[blacksquiggles.livejournal.com]

that is not okay

fear.

you know how often I fall up/down stairs? like a fucking ninja I tell you.

[joenotcharles.livejournal.com]

Ninjas fall down a lot? I'd have thought the opposite.

[blacksquiggles.livejournal.com]

/sarcasm

[cpirate.livejournal.com]

I gotta say...if I were trying to kill someone and make it look like an accident, I'd build them some stairs like that.

[galialuna.livejournal.com]

See? That's NOT right.

[moonlightjoy.livejournal.com]

yeah, i'd think i'd go up those on my hands and knees and slide down them on my bum.

those crrrazy french!

[pphaneuf.livejournal.com]

The first few days, I did get up using my hands! Now, I'm getting the hang of it a bit, which means I go up and down carefully, but fully standing. azrhey just slipped, but thankfully, she was on the last step going down!

[moonlightjoy.livejournal.com]

hrm. yeah. i guess the trick is to not wear socks. or to wear the kind with rubber on the bottom. at least the floor below isn't tile!

[pphaneuf.livejournal.com]

Nah, now I'm all ninja-like, doin' it in slippers...

[jaramin.livejournal.com]

For sure, someone above 200 lbs might rip a stair off if they put a foot on the edge. I guess they never heard of lever effects.

[my-fair-kadie.livejournal.com]

Those frighten me...

[cloquewerk.livejournal.com]

Heh, so it's not just the Dutch who have horrid staircases... I had to deal with stairs much like this each day for 4 months:

At least there was a railing in mine... although a coffeeshop I visited had just a slack rope on the side. That's the last place you want tricky stairs...

[gregorama.livejournal.com]

Pretty to look at and they look like a beautiful bookshelf. But damn! With all my grace and balance... *ouch*

[pphaneuf.livejournal.com]

Oh, yeah, pretty cool looking, if only they'd be, like, twice the size! :-)

[andysoft.livejournal.com]

I'd rather have a ladder instead of that.

[pphaneuf.livejournal.com]

It's sort of like a ladder, when you think about it (and when you look at how I climbed it the first few times)...

[tygrbabe.livejournal.com]

wow, i'm getting dizy just looking at the pictures... see i can't imagine going up or down those in socks, i'd have to do it barefoot so i have some sort ov illusion ov grip. or yeah, sitting down.

we also had insane stairs at our hostel in amsterdam but again, railing was included... makes all the difference.

[pphaneuf.livejournal.com]

I did it half-asleep in slippers (ain't that a reassuring name, eh?)! I think that outright qualify me as a ninja.

I'm pretty tall, for here anyway, that I can reach for that big wooden beam for some help. That also means that I hit my head every other time I go down on the ceiling, so... You win some, you lose some!

[pphaneuf.livejournal.com]

That would be, uh, the big wooden beam that you can't see in the pictures. Oops. :-)

[grimmwire.livejournal.com]

Yeesh. Don't they have building codes in France?

[pphaneuf.livejournal.com]

Let me explain to you how laws (seem to) work in France. "No parking" signs here say "stationnement gênant", not "stationnement interdit" or anything strict sounding like that. No, just that, you know, if you were to park here, just try to remember that you'd be annoying someone. Do you have any idea how well trying to guilt the French into not doing something works?

Well, not very well, it would seem.

[azrhey.livejournal.com]

well, yeah, but I think this building is older than them...

it is not like you can go around and tear down historical places because they are not up to XXth century safety standards.

besides safety regulations in public and private buildings are two whole different things