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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

People using lifts

455 replies

Aquarius1619 · 29/02/2020 18:59

I’m actually a bit annoyed at myself for being petty enough to post this.
But this really got under my skin today!! I have an 11 month old who isn’t keen on the pram, will sit in there for 15 minutes or so but as soon as I stop moving she has a meltdown.
So we were waiting for the lift as we were parked on floor 5 in the local shopping mall today and I was stood behind a queue of people waiting to use the lift. People with no shopping, no kids, just didn’t want to use the stairs. And it took 20 minutes for me to get in the lift because each time it would come to my floor it was full of people with no kids, no wheelchairs, no walking sticks so then we’d wait for the next one then one of the people in front of me with nothing to carry would get in it. I know every disability isn’t visible either but FFS I’m talking a load of people here. By the time some of them had eventually got in the lift it would’ve been quicker for them to have walked up and down the whole place! Meanwhile DD is having a meltdown because we’d been stood around for ages. Is it unreasonable to expect people to just use the stairs and free up the lifts for people who actually need them? If I have no pram with me I always use the stairs

OP posts:
WalkingDeadTrainee · 29/02/2020 19:22

I had a letter in my pocket as I was on the way to my rheumatologist which I showed to them

That's sad. You should NOT have to do that. People just shut the fuck up and let others use the lift

Sunnysidegold · 29/02/2020 19:23

I have a knee injury that means steps are tricky, especially when they go round corners so I always take the lift.

BumbleBeee69 · 29/02/2020 19:25

People do know they don’t need to be disabled to use a lift right ?

CakeIsMyFavouriteAndBest · 29/02/2020 19:25

I have arthritis in my knee and walking up and down stairs is agony, but to anyone looking at me walking about on the flat I look fit and able and completely normal for a woman my age. Yet any steps and I am wincing in pain and in agony for the rest of the week.
I hate having to seek out the lift in a shop, I hate shops which have escalators going up and then i have to find the lift to go down because then I get looked at by people with pushchairs etc looking at me that I should have used the stairs. I shouldn't have to explain why I'm using it.

70isaLimitNotaTarget · 29/02/2020 19:26

Our shopping centre has a lift with no call button ( it is for the trolleys so the Centre staff can call it but everyone uses it . The call button for the other lift will hail it)

What boils my piss is when I'm waiting , the Trolley Lift opens and as I wrestle my trolley (dodgey back and a bit of my lung missing , - invisible issues) a group of people just sail past me and pile in.

I AM here y'know . Before you Hmm

(Though if I'm trolley-less but CBA walking , I'll hover by the lift and hold the door for someone who is waiting with a buggy/wheelchair/trolley . Because I'm decent like that )

BabyWenger · 29/02/2020 19:27

You never used a lift in your life until you had DC?

You think anyone without a child or disabilities should walk up 5 flights of stairs when there is a lift?

rosepetal321 · 29/02/2020 19:27

You are no more entitled to use a lift than anyone else. Why not focus on parenting strategies to manage your daughter’s meltdowns instead of judging other people?!?

newbingepisodes · 29/02/2020 19:27

I can see stairs being a problem for some people but this does really annoy me in John Lewis where their lifts take about an hour to come, then there is no space for peaks or wheelchairs, and they have escalators! So people don't even need to use the stairs!

LeggyLinda · 29/02/2020 19:27

YABVU

LizB62A · 29/02/2020 19:28

YABU
I needed to use the lift in M&S today as I just couldn't manage to get up to the first floor.
It's like blue badges and invisible disabilities - there's no way you can tell whether some really needs to use the lift or are just being lazy

Boshmama · 29/02/2020 19:30

I'm with you OP! So bloody annoying when you have a screaming baby in a pram and people who don't need the lift are blocking it!

Igotthemheavyboobs · 29/02/2020 19:31

My dp walks around 'normally' on flat ground but due to snapping his leg in 3 places last year, really struggles with stairs. This is due to loss of range of movement, his leg and ankle are held together with multiple plates, pins and screws. Yabu

JigsawsAreInPieces · 29/02/2020 19:33

I need to use a lift because I can't do a whole flight of stairs and I never know when my leg will give way under me. It is a recent thing in the last few months but I will not make myself ill to make some other person happier. Hmm

WhatchaMaCalllit · 29/02/2020 19:34

I have a fear of heights and since the mid 1990's shopping centres have installed stairs and escallators with glass sides. They freak me the hell out. So, I will only get on them if I absolutely have to and if there is the option of a lift in the shopping centre, I will take it over the escallator or stairs.
YABVU to think that just because someone doesn't have a trolley/pram/walking frame/wheelchair or is wearing their blue badge around their neck like a lanyard and ID badge they are ineligible to use the lift.
I do hope you know that some people don't go round with a list of their fears/illnessess/inabilities on a whiteboard for you to evaluate whether they can or cannot get in a lift.

Get real!

reginafelangee · 29/02/2020 19:34

Lifts are for everyone YABU

modgepodge · 29/02/2020 19:35

The OP did point out not every disability is visible. Of course anyone can use a lift, but if I was waiting for a lift and a child was there screaming in their pram I definitely would have asked if they wanted to go first.

QueenOfOversharing · 29/02/2020 19:35

Was it your own, personal lift? 🤔

HalfManHalfLabrador · 29/02/2020 19:35

Of course YABU. Who are you to decide who gets to use the lifts? Confused

JustInCaseCakeHappens · 29/02/2020 19:36

YABU

Sometimes I use the lifts because I feel like it, so?

MeetingForCoffee · 29/02/2020 19:38

A couple of months ago I had severe back pain which radiated down my legs and was particularly bad when I was going up and down stairs. Thank God it has now resolved but if you had seen me I would have had no stick or visible sign that I would have been in pain using the stairs. YABU

Vellichor · 29/02/2020 19:38

I have a serious health condition that means I struggle to be on my feet for any length of time but it is not necessarily obvious when someone sees me for a short period of time. I recently had a nasty comment directed towards me on an airport bus by a slightly older woman when a couple got on with a baby. She said “well I’ll give you my seat since so no one else is going to” meaning she would give the mum holding the baby her seat but directed the comment at me (I was sitting down) implying I should have stood up and rolling her eyes at the couple. I needed to sit down, was still dizzy from medical treatment earlier that day, would have had to sit on floor if I didn’t have a seat, and was in a lot of pain but don’t feel like I should have to disclose my medical condition in order not to be hassled for having a seat. I wouldn’t have minded if I was asked politely to give up my seat and could have explained I needed to sit but the immediate judgment that I was just rude or lazy wasn’t nice. Anyone can use a lift and should be able to do so without judgment or harassment from others. Also things like disabled toilets.

JustInCaseCakeHappens · 29/02/2020 19:39

There's a shopping centre around here where one level of the car park is only accessible by lifts! None of the escalators go there.
(Pretty sure there's a staircase too, but it's the emergency one, not something anyone uses on a normal basis).

Of course, it's also the level of parents and baby parking spaces. I have to admit it cracks me up when I hear people with buggies huffing, puffing and moaning that they have to wait in the queue like anyone else to use the lift. They are the only access, complain to the shopping centre, not people who just go back to their car!

Welshmaenad · 29/02/2020 19:39

I think anyone is allowed to use a lift if they want to. However I do get rather pissed off when able bodied people shove in front of me to get in one, meaning there's not space for my mobility scooter so I have to wait for the next. Or even better, tut at me for taking up space with it. Yes, you could fit in two standing people in the space my scooter takes up, but the rather salient point is that I CAN'T STAND UP...

Shopkinsdoll · 29/02/2020 19:40

This used to annoy me when my two were in a pram. I couldn’t get up or down the escalator with a double pram. People are just lazy. Same with the school run, if parents got away with driving right to the school back door, they would lol.

JoshArcherStoleMyTractor · 29/02/2020 19:40

I have no issue with anyone using a lift, what annoys me is when you are patiently waiting your turn with a pram or more so a wheelchair (my grandfather's isn't the easiest to manoeuvre) and people with neither push in to get into the lift even though you were waiting first and might need to wait for someone coming out of the lift to be able to enter, whereas the person on two legs just dashes around you and jumps in the lift. It happened there times in a row last time I went out with my grandfather. In the end I said to the final people (3 adults) who did it, that we and another lady with a pram had been waiting for ages because people kept pushing in front of us, could they just wait their turn or use the escalator next to the lift (they didn't even have to walk FFS). Infuriating.

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