No handrail on stairs in rented house

teddysmum

Assuming the house is an old terraced, the stairways are quite narrow,so no rail would give more width, especially for the moving of furniture. (I remember the rail being a problem in my parents house).


As the OP is heavily pregnant, baby will soon be born, so she wont need a rail for support.


I have back problems, but need to carry our decrepit little dog downstairs and noticed, having read this post, that I don't tend to use the rail, needing two arms to carry the dog (about 20lbs, so not much heavier than a baby).

Phirefly

lessonlearned wrote: »

Frankly the landlord in question is just being both greedy and lazy. ITs an easy DIY job and doesn't cost much to install a simple rail.

I couldn't agree more and I think this is a sad reflection of the rental sector in the UK. Many are splitting hairs here. As a landlord, my priority was to retain good tenants and if this meant the ocassional small financial outlay to undertake reasonable requsts for minimal works they felt were in the interests of their safety, I would do it without hesitation. Whether it's strictly necessary or not is neither here nor there. Blimey, it's not as though she's asking for a hot tub to be installed.

diamond_dave

As a landlord I am amazed at the lack of interest that some tenants have in their own "home". I am constantly being called about trivial things which could and should be addressed by the tenant themselves, ie dripping outside tap, smoke alarm not working(when the tenant admitted that the children had broken it playing with a ball), gate latch stiff, bulb needing replacing, etc,etc. I consider myself a good landlord and want to keep my tenants happy; when the shower was "kaput", I had it replaced within a couple of days, but the tenants seem incapable sometimes of carrying out basic repairs. However, in this case, I would not be happy with no stair rail and although the OP should have spotted this I feel that it would not cost much to get a rail installed - I would be mortified if one of my tenants fell due to a lack of a rail!

FBaby

As a landlord, my priority was to retain good tenants and if this meant the ocassional small financial outlay to undertake reasonable requsts for minimal works they felt were in the interests of their safety, I would do it without hesitation.

And do you know that the tenant is a good one? What assurance does the landlord has that after installing a handrail, which will only be of real use for a couple of months if that, the tenant is going to !!!!!! off a few months later? Landlord could end up with the cost of putting it up and then potentially putting it down if indeed the new tenants wants it down because they can't get their furniture up, all this because OP didn't consider that this could be an issue for her when she visited the house in this first place.

OP wants something done to suits her individual needs, therefore the costs should be hers (but landlord should agree to it).

Phirefly

FBaby wrote: »

And do you know that the tenant is a good one? What assurance does the landlord has that after installing a handrail, which will only be of real use for a couple of months if that, the tenant is going to !!!!!! off a few months later?

Yeah you're right. Even though my tenant came with good references (otherwise they wouldn't be my tenant) pays the rent on time and communicates with me prior to undertaking any diy, why should I acquiesce to their reasonable requests? There's every chance they'll do one soon anyway.

The words self fulfilling prophecy spring to mind.