I'll second this opinion. I'm also a landlord, and as an ER doc, I've heard
thousands of stories of "errors in judgment" . My wife and daughter are
both attorneys.
PM
-----Original Message-----
From: shop-talk-bounces@autox.team.net
[mailto:shop-talk-bounces@autox.team.net] On Behalf Of Scott
Sent: Friday, January 18, 2013 11:36 AM
To: shop-talk@autox.team.net
Subject: Re: [Shop-talk] Making a trap door safe
All the engineering solutions are pretty cool sounding, but after being a
landlord myself, there's just no way I'd ever rent out a house with a
trapdoor in it, no matter what. I'd build a staircase--even outside the
house, if I had to--before I let tenants use a trapdoor in a hallway.
Shoot, I'd nail the trapdoor shut and just eliminate access to the basement
entirely before I let a tenant use a trapdoor.
I don't think you could buy enough liability coverage to cover lifetime
skilled nursing care for someone falling through that thing. And they will
find a way to do it. I had a tenant flush a deodorant bottle down a toilet.
After that, anything seems possible.
For just you guys, you could install gates in the hallway--like a railroad
crossing barrier. When someone uses the trapdoor, they lower the barriers on
either side of it. If they were just above waist-height, and if they locked
into a latch on both sides of the hallway they'd certainly make you aware of
their presence before you fell into a hole in the floor, no matter how
sleepy you were. You could even tie them into the operation of the trapdoor
itself.
But all that sounds to me like as much work as putting a three-foot bump-out
and a staircase on an exterior wall.
Scott
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