Being encouraged to keep death trap railings

[Mushroo]

I live on a private development that was built in the 60s made up of around 20 houses.

It’s all self contained and there’s no external management company - we each just pay a small amount each year for upkeep of the small communal garden.

However, one of the ‘rules’ is that all the frontage of the houses should be the same - eg all white front doors and windows.

Now, here’s the issue. All of the houses are accessed via 10 steps and have the original iron railings. (Imagine like a New York townhouse).

These original iron railings have massive gaps between the spindles that are completely unsafe, and I have 2 under 5s that could quite easily fall through and onto the concrete below which is about a 7 foot drop.

I want to replace our railings with the same style, but with spindles that meet modern building regulations.

The neighbours are being a bit sniffy about it, but AIBU?

If you can’t change the colour of your front door, I really don’t see how you could justify changing the spindles of the railings.

Could you not fashion something temporary, till your DC are old enough to reliably use the stairs? Something like some chicken wire type stuff wound around/through the spindles? There must be something you could do.

Could you install one of those rope systems like at Go Ape to keep them safe? I doubt the rules forbid it.

Do you have communal insurance? A chat with a broker (not the company - don’t give them anything to write in their records until you want them to) to get an opinion on current OHS regulations might be useful.

Then you can approach your neighbours with greater strength to your argument.

Yes putsomething temporary to make it safe.. then neighbours might withdraw complaints.

I can see that having one house change the railings would look really bad so I’d go with the suggestion to put something up behind it. Chicken mesh wouldn’t look that good. I bet you could find something that does.

Get some clear polycarbonate panels and fix them to the railings with clear cable ties. Limited visible effect but would entirely remove the safety concerns, as well as being much cheaper. This is done in some historic houses (NT etc) for the same reason.

I've seen staircases like this with a black plastic mesh woven through - somehow the black disappears and it isn't so obvious that there's safety mesh there.

The other thing you can do is what you often see on the steps of New York brownstones, which is to put square plant pots zip tied to the spindles on each step, to block the spaces.

We had a similar railing in our house when I was a toddler. Again, they could not be changed for various reasons. My DF put up a temporary mesh barrier behind them. It was still there when we took his first DGC to see him.

That might work for you as well OP.

I like the flowerpot idea! I might give that a go, thank you @Xiaoxiong

The mesh etc I think would be practical, but would look worse?

this is what they look like - so they need sorting out anyway as the previous owners let them rust.

So they’re not particularly ornate or anything, I’d just do the same thing but with the spindles closer together