Interesting pull-down stairway placement

Found this in a small ranch house with a fairly big attic.

Installed, directly, over the stairway to the basement. And the fold-out stairs did not even reach the top of the basement stairway.

I jumped and climbed up and inspected that attic, anyway, but now I am asking myself, “WHY? WHAT KIND OF IDIOT ARE YOU? THAT WAS WAY DANGEROUS!”.

A defect?

BTW: The client, a Realtor, asked me why the local building dept. hadn’t caught this. I don’t know why, but I started laughing and fell on the ground and had a laughing fit for about 3 minutes. I just couldn’t stop.

I still don’t know why.

you’re right Will…that was pretty stupi…er dangerous glad You are not posting from the emergency room…

I have seen, and entered, several pull-down stairways above steps to basements. Often, I will open them, and put my ladder up against the stairway for a just-in-case incident. Most are all hardly used. Just be sure you check them throughly before using.

Yep, I think I would have opted to use my own ladder on that one.

Hope the trip up there proved worthwhile.

I have actually seen that before also recently. It was in a 50’s era home.

Just be glad that you did it without getting hurt, and think about it next time.