Stairs & Our Attitudes Toward Them

[oxo66]

Did anyone else do this as a child?
You go to the loo, flush it and then run like hell down the stairs before the noise of the flush can reach it's loudest. It was a feeling of being chased by something that you had summoned. I would sometimes leap the entire flight in two or three jumps, even in broad daylight.

Yes! Thank you! - I haven't thought about it for ...um ...many years, but yes I did that. I wonder how old I was. If I was older than nine, we had moved and no longer had an 'upstairs'.

 

[David Plankton]

Does this sound familiar to anyone? It's not about stairs specifically but it ties in with certain themes discussed here.

A short story. A child is playing home alone and he is imagining that the patterns on the carpet represent various obstacles. Water, quicksand, lava etc. He is trying to get across a room or hallway without stepping on these sections, instead keeping to the safe parts of the pattern which symbolize paths, bridges and fallen tree trunks. It would be classified as 'weird' fiction as the boundaries between imagination and reality become blurred.

I can't recall the outcome of the story, the title, author or even when I read it. I want to say Roald Dahl but I'm quite sure it isn't, maybe John Collier?

 

[Spookdaddy]

...I can't recall the outcome of the story, the title, author or even when I read it. I want to say Roald Dahl but I'm quite sure it isn't, maybe John Collier?

It does sound a little like a Dahl short story: Wish or The Wish...something like that?

It kind of rings a bell, but it's an awful long time since I read any Dahl.

 

[David Plankton]

It does sound a little like a Dahl short story: Wish or The Wish...something like that?

It kind of rings a bell, but it's an awful long time since I read any Dahl.

Yes, that's it. I just quickly grabbed my copy and scanned the story. Cheers.

 

[IbisNibs]

It does sound a little like a Dahl short story:

Actually, that sounds like something I would do.

the stairs in our house were horrible, with very tall risers and very narrow treads (not uncommon in old houses, but it would be illegal to install such stairs these days). My solution to getting down was to lie flat and slide, at high speed.

. . . and this is something I definitely would NEVER do! It sounds more terrifying than walking down any staircase I've ever seen!

 

[Naughty_Felid]

We were trained as home visit care workers to always walk in front and so above of oldies when going upstairs with them for two reasons: In theory, if a person loses their footing on stairs, they're going to shift their body wait to reach out for you instinctively so they'll fall forwards instead and also if you're behind them, they're going to fall on you so that's everyone screwed ..

Depends. As a strapping 20-something lad I could catch a 65-85kg person without batting an eyelid. My legs were like iron.

 

[Mythopoeika]

My legs were like iron.

Rusty and inflexible?

 

[Naughty_Felid]

Rusty and inflexible?

eye-catching and sexy

 

[Spookdaddy]

...My legs were like iron.

Rusty and inflexible?

Nah. Very hot, needed filling with water regularly, and left nasty brown marks if left in one place for too long.

 

[merricat]

I've always loved stairways.
As a child they filled me with a sense of adventure, like portals to new worlds. I suppose they still do. I'm particularly fond of twisting/turning staircases, spirals and ladders. It's difficult to describe the sensation, it can remind me of the excitement of turning to the first page in a new book, a potential 'initiation' into something mysterious, unknown.

Then there's the sheer pleasure of the sounds, especially if the staircase is domestic, used, old...the soft, pliant sensation of the boards creaking underfoot. Staircases possess their own kind of 'presence' or personality; we meet or encounter them rather than simply pass through them. Perhaps they function as a respite from the collective, a sort of passage to and from the self? As a previous poster said, this particular kind of liminal space represents a journey which we almost always take alone - however you feel about symbolic woo, for some this becomes a catalyst for night terrors and death.

I grew up on a farm (horses and geese), although the house we lived in was relatively new. There was a derelict old farmhouse still hidden beside an overgrown apple orchard, and an assorted clutter of oddly placed hay sheds and barns dotted around, which naturally captured and enlivened my early, fortean imagination. There were old staircases everywhere, it seemed; rickety steps into haylofts, improvised steps made of earth and mud connecting plateaus of land, steps leading, mysteriously, from the secret back end of the darkest old stables into an unfathomably wild and neglected space above. Secret spaces are always located via steps! I wasn't supposed to explore the old farmhouse, but that was like insisting a moth shouldn't fly towards a flame. Tiny but twisty, broken yet still intact and seemingly never ending, that staircase was to become the very embodiment of all future visions of fairytales, folk tales and songs of the darker variety. It followed me onto an art foundation, photography projects, and later, a fine arts degree (god help me). It had influence.

We'd build staircases out of hay bales then jump from the top into the softly strewn hay below. Someone created a makeshift staircase with a small balcony that ran part way up a manure pile (or a muck-heap as we called them). I remember log steps, wooden steps, steps created with broken flagstones, railway sleepers, hunks of rock, clods of earth. My favourites were the most pointless, which didn't seem to go anywhere, perhaps relics of history, old mines.

We used to explore clusters of derelict houses in the woods, before such things were cordoned off. The stairs were most often too broken to climb, yet they are all still there, catalogued and preserved in memory, ancient yet ageless, to me.

I also loved ladders and steps that led into and out of water such as swimming pools, ponds and streams. The moving stairs in a fairground funhouse, and the narrow, claustrophobic, aromatic stairways separating the floors in antique bookshops where you'd always bang your head if you forgot to stoop. Stairs in curious old buildings, Trust properties and ancient pubs, connecting rooms and floors like rabbit warrens; dusty, a bit rank and oozing the passage of time. Steps built into wild fells, carpeted with grass and heather.

Even now, the everyday domestic stairways* still hold on to their original magic. It's my favourite part of house hunting. I know that if I can imagine walking up the stairs at a slow and leisurely pace in a power cut, It's a good place

*I did experience something horrid whilst descending a staircase once, but it hasn't put me off. (an old thread of mine describes this in IHTM, possibly called 'something unpleasant, unseen').

 

[Tunn11]

I have to admit they get me down.

Ok, Ok, I'm going.

 

[pandacracker]

I like the liminal space aspect of stairs (I like the liminal aspect of anything to be honest)

When I was very young I used to like to sit at the top of the stairs and enjoy the sensation of space (there was a window above the front door but the landing only led to dormer rooms at the back so there was a vast open space over the stairs)

When I was four or five I was very scared of falling down stairs because I'd heard the older people telling stories about such things and then, one night something happened.
Sometime during the day I trod on a lump of something unspeakable on the stairs in my bare feet (it was some sort of compressed food debris, like mashed potato) In a fit of mischief I placed the lump on one of the top treads thinking "hopefully one of my older sisters will tread on it at bedtime and that will be funny because I know how icky it feels"
Come bedtime my two sisters and I bundled upstairs barefooted, me last, and to my joy my oldest sister (8/9) trod on the thing.
"Eurrgh" she howled and sat down on the top step to inspect the horror that had stuck to the sole of her foot.
"Whatisitwhatisit?" I asked gleefully from one or two steps below.
She lifted her foot and shook it in my face. My cunning plan had worked perfectly, the thing was stuck to her foot. I screamed with laughter but instinctively backed away from it as she shook her foot in my face and spectacularly tumbled backwards all the way to the bottom of the stairs. My nightmare had come true!

Retelling this memory has made me realise that it was probably my first encounter with the Cosmic Joker.

 

[blessmycottonsocks]

This video from YouTube blogger Kane Pixels is worth a watch.
He understands the liminal creepiness of a stairwell.
A decidedly unsettling short film in which the stairs are the star!

 

[Mythopoeika]

This video from YouTube blogger Kane Pixels is worth a watch.
He understands the liminal creepiness of a stairwell.
A decidedly unsettling short film in which the stairs are the star!

Kane Pixels is one of the people behind the 'Backrooms' animated films.
'Liminal' seems to be what he's all about.

 

[Spookdaddy]

Very impressive.

But what would have made it perfect - if someone had thrown the ball back!!

Even just watching that second-hand you can kind of see how disorienting the situation could be. I believe I've read that when we travel through long, narrow passages we use our depth perception at the expense of absorbing cues from our immediate environment, which is our normal method of maintaining balance. This also happens when looking down from a height. So this situation represents a double whammy on the wobble scale.

Also - not staircases as such, but the visuals reminded me a bit of something:

That Jacques Tourneur new a thing or two about corridors:

 

[catseye]

I like the liminal space aspect of stairs (I like the liminal aspect of anything to be honest)

When I was very young I used to like to sit at the top of the stairs and enjoy the sensation of space (there was a window above the front door but the landing only led to dormer rooms at the back so there was a vast open space over the stairs)

When I was four or five I was very scared of falling down stairs because I'd heard the older people telling stories about such things and then, one night something happened.
Sometime during the day I trod on a lump of something unspeakable on the stairs in my bare feet (it was some sort of compressed food debris, like mashed potato) In a fit of mischief I placed the lump on one of the top treads thinking "hopefully one of my older sisters will tread on it at bedtime and that will be funny because I know how icky it feels"
Come bedtime my two sisters and I bundled upstairs barefooted, me last, and to my joy my oldest sister (8/9) trod on the thing.
"Eurrgh" she howled and sat down on the top step to inspect the horror that had stuck to the sole of her foot.
"Whatisitwhatisit?" I asked gleefully from one or two steps below.
She lifted her foot and shook it in my face. My cunning plan had worked perfectly, the thing was stuck to her foot. I screamed with laughter but instinctively backed away from it as she shook her foot in my face and spectacularly tumbled backwards all the way to the bottom of the stairs. My nightmare had come true!

Retelling this memory has made me realise that it was probably my first encounter with the Cosmic Joker.

As a result of actually falling down the stairs, did your fear of it stop? As in, you found it wasn't as horrific or painful (or terminal) as your brain had led you to believe, so you just accepted it as something else to be careful of?

Because the Joker may have been trying to teach you something!

 

[bugmum]

I quite like stairs myself. I've got a fondness for sitting on them. And any kind of old house with little up-and-down staircases in unexpected places is my idea of heaven.

The stairs I've nearly fallen down more than once are the ones at work - wide open staircases on which my trick knee delights on popping out, making me lurch sideways/forwards and grab for the banister. They've never caught me out properly yet, but they're still preferable to the Lift of Doom, even though I work on the top floor...

 

[pandacracker]

As a result of actually falling down the stairs, did your fear of it stop? As in, you found it wasn't as horrific or painful (or terminal) as your brain had led you to believe, so you just accepted it as something else to be careful of?

Because the Joker may have been trying to teach you something!

That's an interesting question.

I think the lesson from the joker was "You think you can play jokes? Look what I can do"

I have no recollection of what the incident did to my fear of falling downstairs. As my mother hugged me and consoled me I remember being... horrified... aghast... appalled... that my trick had backfired. I wanted to try and explain to her the whole thing but feared a telling off because it was me that had caused it all so I kept quiet. I was left alone with the realisation that I was the architect of my own horror.

A few years later my parents 'modernised' (think 1970's) the house by replacing the old staircase with a polished wood, open plan flight
of stairs like these

They terrified me even more.

 

[Victory]

I too dislike staircases with slats/gaps.

I feel unsettled using them, and relieved afterwards.

I do not blame myself for this.
I think my brain is sending me signals that such a structure has potential dangers.

 

[Shady]

I do not like open stairs like that especially going up them, ive fell down stairs before due to my boot heel twisting and hurling me down them, brother comes along and runs off laughing to tell his mate, me screaming after him, 'Its ok, I'll help myself up' that was minus the swearing, at another house i lived at the cat tried to murder me on the stairs, what is it with cats an stairs. Any way, I lived in mobile homes for centuries, then i moved into a bungalow, the mobile home had steps and i fell down numerous times, nearly dragging my neighbour with me, i went to doc who referred me to one of those people that inflict more pain than you originally have.

 

[brownmane]

I have fallen down stairs several times (minimum 4x lifetime that I remember). In general, they don't scare me. But the ones that did cause me unease were stairs to an attic, and my grandmother's stairs. Her stairs had a very tight turn in them and opened directly into the upper floor. Nothing barring you from just stepping into nothingness from the upper floor. And the bottom entry was from her living room. A door closed them off, mostly, I figure, to keep colder air from coming down in winter.

I had nightmares about these stairs. They involved the fact that you couldn't see the top from below. You wouldn't know what might be coming down them.

As a kid I also had recurring nightmare of a house that had multitudinous staircases going every which way and joining wherever and leading off into blackness. There was no escaping, no out.

 

[Spookdaddy]

I too dislike staircases with slats/gaps.

I feel unsettled using them, and relieved afterwards.

I do not blame myself for this.
I think my brain is sending me signals that such a structure has potential dangers.

I wonder if this has some connection to the factor I mentioned in my earlier post - in that in using stairs with open risers your perception of depth (through the gaps in the stairs) is distracting from the data your brain usually extracts from the direct environment in order to maintain balance.

Also, although it would only occur when going up, it's just struck me that there might also be a kind of strobe effect created as the gaps between treads flick in and out of your field of vision. Which again, could be disconcerting.

I also think that (also going upwards) its almost natural for our toes to be slightly under the next tread - something that is prevented when there are solid risers - and I wonder if this potential for tripping, even if we aren't exactly conscious of it, can make us feel a bit off kilter.

Lastly, open riser staircases in domestic situations tend to have bare wooden treads - and I wonder if we are more conscious of slipping on such a surface than we might be on a carpeted one.

 

[Floyd]

I too dislike staircases with slats/gaps.

I feel unsettled using them, and relieved afterwards.

My Auntie's cottage had those sort in. They were put in in the 1970s and they were a beautiful piece of carpentry (They were ripped out when she sold up a few years ago apparently).

I used to sit on them with their cat -*who's name I've forgotten at the moment*.

However, as my younger cousin is disabled they had carpet wrapped around the middle of the treads so they were much safer.

The only problem I had with this sort of stair is banging my head on the side of them when a table was put under there at Christmas time.

*Edit- William*.

 

[brownmane]

Thinking on, I do occasionally get the fleeting thought/vision when I am walking downstairs of me just falling face forward down them. I have a brief moment of panic and actually have to shake my head and consciously walk down.

My mom tells me that when I was small and walking in a walker (remember those?) that she found me at the bottom of the basement stairs. She has no idea if I'd lost consciousness nor how long I'd been there. Kind if makes me wonder why, I assume, I didn't cry loudly after falling.

Maybe the brief thought is a memory?

 

[PeteS]

Thinking on, I do occasionally get the fleeting thought/vision when I am walking downstairs of me just falling face forward down them. I have a brief moment of panic and actually have to shake my head and consciously walk down.

My mom tells me that when I was small and walking in a walker (remember those?) that she found me at the bottom of the basement stairs. She has no idea if I'd lost consciousness nor how long I'd been there. Kind if makes me wonder why, I assume, I didn't cry loudly after falling.

Maybe the brief thought is a memory?

 

[PeteS]

I quite like stairs myself. I've got a fondness for sitting on them. And any kind of old house with little up-and-down staircases in unexpected places is my idea of heaven.

The stairs I've nearly fallen down more than once are the ones at work - wide open staircases on which my trick knee delights on popping out, making me lurch sideways/forwards and grab for the banister. They've never caught me out properly yet, but they're still preferable to the Lift of Doom, even though I work on the top floor...

Yes I too have a gammy knee which has nearly caused everything to end badly on a few occasions when going downstairs. My friend's ex died in her 60's falling down the stairs at her home. (ironically a few months after said friend had died prematurely). In the UK several hundred people die every year from falls on stairs. I tend to be more cautious now.

 

[His Extremely DeLux Self]

I dislike walking up and down stairs with a dislike bordering on hatred. My animosity is mostly mundane: the elevator has been out of order in my building for more than three weeks, so if and when I want to leave my apartment I have to walk down five flights of stairs and then walk up the same five flights when I come home. I'm 64 and heavy-set, have some arthritis in my lower joints, as well as occasional sciatica, and my feet are trashed from a poster delivery job I had twenty-five years ago, so I'm inevitably sweating, panting, angry and in considerable physical discomfort when I get done climbing five flights. I have repeatedly sworn that if I die on those stairs, I am gonna come back and haunt this place so bad that nobody will want to live here ever again.

 

[Ulalume]

Stairs - I like the look of them, but not so keen on using them. I've never had the best sense of balance.
Fortunately, I live in the land of ranch houses, so I don't have to deal with them too often.

 

[Stormkhan]

When I was very young my family lived on a farm - the stairs in our house were horrible, with very tall risers and very narrow treads (not uncommon in old houses, but it would be illegal to install such stairs these days). My solution to getting down was to lie flat and slide, at high speed. I had no real memory of this - although I carry a couple of eyebrow scars from a slight miscalculation - until My mum got some old film converted to video; I understand now why my dad's nickname for me was 'Bullet' - also why my head is so bloody hard.

As a 20-something party-monster, we had a game involving this.
A plastic bucket was placed at the bottom of the stairs and we threw outselves head-first down, to try to get the bucket on our head!
A 'sledge' of cardboard was allowed but the bucket was placed further away from the bottom tread.
We found wearing chainmail stopped the friction burns through our clothes but increased drag. Since there was no stair carpet, it did a neat sanding job on 'em too.

 

[Floyd]

As a 20-something party-monster, we had a game involving this.
A plastic bucket was placed at the bottom of the stairs and we threw outselves head-first down, to try to get the bucket on our head!
A 'sledge' of cardboard was allowed but the bucket was placed further away from the bottom tread.
We found wearing chainmail stopped the friction burns through our clothes but increased drag. Since there was no stair carpet, it did a neat sanding job on 'em too.

I'm learning a lot about you today- you can fight with knives and swords and you used to fling yourself downstairs (sometimes wearing chainmail) for fun.

I mean where does one even get chainmail from anyway?

You're either a top chap/es, or unhinged. I can't quite decide which it is......