Would you rent a holiday cottage with a stair lift?

[Lettucelet]

Just that.

Would you rent it if you didn’t need it?

Would it put you off?

Would it be a plus if you were elderly or wanted a family holiday with elderly parents/grandparents?

It would really be nice to know more background

@Hoppinggreen My DH got the stair lift removed from a relative’s house and sold it back to the supplier. It was second hand in the first place.

For a holiday let, it would be a liability. There’s a shortage of disability holiday lets in many areas but one level living is much better. With an internal lift if an appartment. Fingers in a stair lift is just one worry I would have.

For those asking for more background, you don’t get the house history/context in the booking.com blurb. So the purpose of this thread is to ascertain when people search for holiday cottages, whether a stairlift would put them off or encourage them to rent it. Because that is what you would see in the photos and that is what you would read in the key list of features.

So you don't own a holiday cottage ?

You are just looking at random cottages on booking . Com and happened to see one with a stairlift?

@Lettucelet It would put me off. If I needed easy access I would rent a bungalow. It would not encourage me to rent it.

I think in that case, it would put me off as I would be concerned about the safety and maintenance of it.

As PP have said, when travelling with family members with mobility and breathing difficulties, we have always sought ground floor accommodation.

Stairlifts fold up to the wall so able-bodied people can get by. No problem getting luggage upstairs... put it in the stairlift and use the remote to send it up! Job done!

Not always.Having lived in a house with narrow stairs and the most foldable stairlift we could get, it was still a pain getting past it even when folded. Carrying anything oddly shaped like a laundry basket was also tricky. You could send things like luggage upstairs by themselves if they were the size and shape that would fit in an airline overhead locker, anything bigger or more awkwardly shaped wouldn't balance on the seat.

It would be great if many/most holiday lets were accessible. There really is something unpleasant in many of the comments about how it would affect the vibes. I wonder if those people also dislike using a toilet that includes rails for those who need them. Wanting to keep disabled people and accessibility equipment out of sight, only in specialist or niche accommodation or areas that other people don’t have to encounter is literally segregation.

We have narrow stairs and a stair lift.

If I have anything really awkward to take upstairs, I just send the stair lift to the top landing, so there's nothing to negotiate on the actual stairs and vice versa.

You don't have to keep the stairlift in the middle of the stairs, it can sit at the bottom or the top.

I love our stairlift. It has changed my DH's life.

Stair lifts are not magic carpets. The mechanism runs up the stairwell wall and the chair moves up and down on those rails. There is huge potential for children to play with them and if fitted in a narrow stairwell they don’t leave a huge amount of space. Accessible holiday flats are usually flats or bungalows with widened doorways, level floors and other assistance rails. Just having a stairlift is pointless for many. There’s a shortage of accessible holiday lets but they need to be properly designed. A stairlift isn’t the answer.

@DragonScreeches that's fine if you have a top landing big enough to get the chair properly out of the way, we don't and it was still a pain to get past whether at the top, bottom or in the middle. Obviously it depends on the lift and the configuration of the house but you can't just assume that it will work well for everyone in the house.

Having said that, I loved our stair lift too because it helped my DH to stay independent for as long as he could, and the inconvenience for me was a small price to pay. But without that motivation it would just have been a nuisance.

Stairlifts can be dangerous for young children. A lad at our son's primary school was killed when he got trapped in one.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-432317/Boy-crushed-death-great-grandmas-stairlift.html

It would definitely put me off staying in a holiday home with one. I'd just look for a place on the ground floor or with a ground floor disability access bedroom/bathroom if needed.

My GC are only allowed on the stairlift under supervision and with the safety belt on. If someone were to fall from it, it stops instantly.

@Mischance What about little fingers getting in the mechanism. It’s just unsafe as a toy.

That's where the supervision comes in......

@Mischance The question was about having one in a holiday house. It’s not much fun having to supervise a dc thst closely on holiday. They simply are not compatible with young children and children staying in such a house would not be used to them. I would say it’s almost unheard of for a holiday let to have one. What you do in your own home is different; you don’t have different people staying each week or have guest safety to think about.

I think the other aspect not being discussed here is that ideally fire escape routes are free from obstruction. There are different regulations for holiday lets. If the stairs are wide, there’s probably no obstruction. In a smaller stairwell, there could be. You have to consider if you should use the stairlift in a fire and whether it gets in the way and impedes a speedy exit. For me: don’t have one.

Because stair lifts are generally quite difficult to move around. My mother has quite wide stairs and even going upstairs once or twice while I am there is a problem. You can’t do it quickly. If I had a spare 10 minutes every time I went upstairs I would use the stair lift. They are very very slow.
Stair lifts are also dangerous for young children.

A plus for me. They do not obstruct the stairway when not in use.

I cannot imagine why it might put anyone off, disabled or otherwise.

If I was travelling with a person needing the lift then fine if not then no I'd not like it.

A lot of them do, my Mums is a nightmare to get past

It would give the place a less luxury vibe, so while it wouldn't put me off, it wouldn't be something I'd want to pay a lot for iyswim?
I'd wonder if the place was a deceased estate which doesn't scream holiday. However I think everyone in the family would find it fun to play on a stair lift.

My parents have one.

No it would not necessarily put me off, but it wouldn’t be a positive for me either as thankfully we don’t need one for our immediate family. And when we have travelled with wider family we’ve booked somewhere with a downstairs bedroom and bathroom.

My parents’s one does impact on the space on the stairs because the stairs aren’t that wide and the landing isn’t very big so you do have to kind of squeeze past it a bit if it’s at the top. I personally think it’s more of a safety risk because it gets in your way, especially if you’re carrying anything.

Also yes the kids always want to play on it, which as the stairs are very steep, is potentially extremely dangerous if they fall off. Hadn’t even thought about the machinery injuring them!

I also agree that from a property owners point of view it will have to be tested and maintained. And are you liable if someone is injured by falling off it or whatever?

Mine just folds into the wall.