Renting a place - worried about stairs for a toddler

[butterflies2]

Hello!

I've found a nice house that's a possible on my shortlist of places I could rent. But my only concern is that it's a very old house and the wall next to the stairs is exposed stone - i.e. lots of edges rather than flat brickwork.

My little boy is nearly three, and although he's confident on the stairs, I just worry that if he wasn't concentrating and fell down he'd do himself a lot of damage.

Am I overthinking this or do other Mum's out there think this is a reason not to rent the house?

Thanks for your help!

Depends how rough, like it he was wearing short sleeves and caught his elbow it would really graze it

Go and have another look at it, take DS with you, and let him climb the stairs?

Also, if you used baby gates - you could control when he goes up and down - which would mean you could supervise him more?

I've just taken our gates down top and bottom as DD is now nearly 3 and it was cauing more problems having them now, as DD was found swinging on the one at the top and told DP she was flying mad

IMO you are overthinking it, if he is managing stairs well already he is most likely to use the wall to steady himself with his hand than anything else.

If he did fall the stairs themselves would do more major damage than the wall, yes he may get some scrapes from the wall but scrapes are not that big a deal although they look nasty. I don't think you are seriously increasing his risk by moving in there and I would definitly not decide to avoid renting that house just because of the wall.

Hmmm, yes I'll have to go back with my son and have another look.

He's just learned to open stair gates now and also on the lower half of the stairs there's no banister so nowhere to attach one side of the stair gate too!

If he is opening stairgates why do you need one?

Although the lack of banister would bother me - do you mean the last two/three stairs or half the staircase? A couple of stairs is one thing, beyond that I think it is illegal to rent it out - I am pretty sure that it is covered under the same rules as the distance between the up posts etc (sorry can't remember the proper word for them!). I could be wrong about that so don't quote me but I was sure there were some rules/guidelines. Unless it is a listed building or the wall/staircase is protected possibly...

You can see the stairs on here - it's the bottom 5 that don't have a banister (hope I'm ok to post links?)

www.homes-on-line.com/buckinghamshire/clairelloydproperty.487/full_agent/f487_cl120.htm

Re the stairgate - I just meant it would be good if I could use one to control when he went upstairs, but even if I could fit one it would be no good because he'd be able to open it!

You need to put around it because there are _s in the link which make it go underliney in the middle

I wouldn't let it affect whether you rent, unless you want more children, because they look dangerous with a crawling baby. I think your toddler would be fine with those stairs.

I would have thought those steps would be fine for a three year old.

I would have thought they would be fine myself - lovely house btw

Thanks everyone, it always helps to get other people's perspectives