Interior row house bedroom with skylights but no window

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Omg - i hate reading this site!! Yes my child is in a bedroom exactly like this. What in the world?! The house has always been listed as three bedrooms.

That's not a legal bedroom and if there was a fire, you need a door and window so a firefighter can bust the window and get you or your child out. They cannot go through a skylight.

I mean I guess it would save a few minutes but the rooms on either side have it- it’s a small row house.

They have to go through the window when it’s too dangerous to enter the house through the front door. Smoke rises. The hall would be very smoky in this scenario. They need to go in through the window and your child would hopefully be in the bedroom with the door to the hall closed.

I would put my kid in the master if I had no other option and I would sleep in the windowless room.

[Anonymous]

real estate agents are allowed to call a closet a bedroom in their listings....doesn't make it a legal bedroom.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does it have two doors? As in, one into the hall and one into another bedroom?

Door into another bedroom doesn't count as an egress.

Ok I’m a failure as a parent and can’t even afford this house either - thanks…

You’re not a failure, that shouldn’t be listed as a bedroom. You’re a good parent for noticing that it seems unusual and asking the question.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Omg - i hate reading this site!! Yes my child is in a bedroom exactly like this. What in the world?! The house has always been listed as three bedrooms.

That's not a legal bedroom and if there was a fire, you need a door and window so a firefighter can bust the window and get you or your child out. They cannot go through a skylight.

I mean I guess it would save a few minutes but the rooms on either side have it- it’s a small row house.

They have to be able to get to the other rooms and the hallway may have the fire. A few minutes can be life or death.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does it have two doors? As in, one into the hall and one into another bedroom?

Door into another bedroom doesn't count as an egress.

Ok I’m a failure as a parent and can’t even afford this house either - thanks…

You’re not a failure, that shouldn’t be listed as a bedroom. You’re a good parent for noticing that it seems unusual and asking the question.

This, and a good parent would continue to rent vs. put their child in an unsafe situation. Its not a real bedroom and you are a great parent for thinking of your child's safety first. Hard no, pass on that house.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Omg - i hate reading this site!! Yes my child is in a bedroom exactly like this. What in the world?! The house has always been listed as three bedrooms.

That's not a legal bedroom and if there was a fire, you need a door and window so a firefighter can bust the window and get you or your child out. They cannot go through a skylight.

I mean I guess it would save a few minutes but the rooms on either side have it- it’s a small row house.

They have to go through the window when it’s too dangerous to enter the house through the front door. Smoke rises. The hall would be very smoky in this scenario. They need to go in through the window and your child would hopefully be in the bedroom with the door to the hall closed.

I would put my kid in the master if I had no other option and I would sleep in the windowless room.

^ also you want them taking your kid out the bedroom window if it’s that unsafe. Not going back into the smoky hall. Your kid will be in their pajamas without any fire-protective gear. This was a great question, OP. So silly they listed that as a bedroom!

[Anonymous]

OP: Yes, it is very common on the Hill for people to use what aren't technically bedrooms (bc no window) as kid's bedrooms. Very, very common. The responses from this thread seem to be either from that weird subset of non-DC dwellers who oddly read and chime in on DCUM or parents of super young kids who think the sun rises and sets by what their toddler and 4 year olds do (take a look at the PS3 and PK4 consternation and naval gazing on DCUM schools forums for further evidence).

[Anonymous]

Ignore DCUM.

My issue is how long would stay in this house

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP: Yes, it is very common on the Hill for people to use what aren't technically bedrooms (bc no window) as kid's bedrooms. Very, very common. The responses from this thread seem to be either from that weird subset of non-DC dwellers who oddly read and chime in on DCUM or parents of super young kids who think the sun rises and sets by what their toddler and 4 year olds do (take a look at the PS3 and PK4 consternation and naval gazing on DCUM schools forums for further evidence).

Yes, because something being very, very common makes it right. Also people who live on the Hill are immune to house fires.

[Anonymous]

We have a room like this in our cap hill rowhouse. It was counted as a bedroom in the real estate listing as a bedroom but legally I know it wouldn't count. We use it as an office but I would have no problem putting a kid in it. Ours doesn't have a skylight which I prefer. If you use it as a bedroom you don't want to have to cover the sky light to stop the morning light from coming in. We have skylights in the hallway which I think works better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP: Yes, it is very common on the Hill for people to use what aren't technically bedrooms (bc no window) as kid's bedrooms. Very, very common. The responses from this thread seem to be either from that weird subset of non-DC dwellers who oddly read and chime in on DCUM or parents of super young kids who think the sun rises and sets by what their toddler and 4 year olds do (take a look at the PS3 and PK4 consternation and naval gazing on DCUM schools forums for further evidence).

My responses were from growing up in a middle class neighborhood where a lot of the parents were firefighters. They obviously dealt with a lot of scary and sad situations. That is where I was coming from.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP: Yes, it is very common on the Hill for people to use what aren't technically bedrooms (bc no window) as kid's bedrooms. Very, very common. The responses from this thread seem to be either from that weird subset of non-DC dwellers who oddly read and chime in on DCUM or parents of super young kids who think the sun rises and sets by what their toddler and 4 year olds do (take a look at the PS3 and PK4 consternation and naval gazing on DCUM schools forums for further evidence).

I didn’t see anyone say the child would prefer a room with windows. People said it wasn’t safe to have a child sleeping overnight in a room without a means of egress to the exterior. If you don’t think that’s a valid concern, then you can state that. But you have callously and inaccurately characterizes the point of view is the other posters to make yourself feel better about putting a child in a literal firetrap.

[Anonymous]

OP, you are describing probably 90% of rowhouses in DC. That's the floorplan for the typical 3 bedroom rowhouse. Our interior bedroom has a sleeping porch behind it, so if you couldn't go through the hall, you'd go through the door to the windows in that room. No different than a slightly larger bedroom in terms of distance to the windows. Though the windows all drop three stories down onto the alley and back patio, so not like anyone's actually getting out that way on their own.

DCUM suburbanites can holler about firetraps, but they aren't familiar with the architecture in the city. There are thousands and thousands of children living in rowhouses in DC, talk to those parents about how they teach their kids about fire safety, not DCUM.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, you are describing probably 90% of rowhouses in DC. That's the floorplan for the typical 3 bedroom rowhouse. Our interior bedroom has a sleeping porch behind it, so if you couldn't go through the hall, you'd go through the door to the windows in that room. No different than a slightly larger bedroom in terms of distance to the windows. Though the windows all drop three stories down onto the alley and back patio, so not like anyone's actually getting out that way on their own.

DCUM suburbanites can holler about firetraps, but they aren't familiar with the architecture in the city. There are thousands and thousands of children living in rowhouses in DC, talk to those parents about how they teach their kids about fire safety, not DCUM.

Nobody I know or have known in a DC rowhouse has an interior bedroom without windows. How did you come up with the 90 percent figure, out of curiosity?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, you are describing probably 90% of rowhouses in DC. That's the floorplan for the typical 3 bedroom rowhouse. Our interior bedroom has a sleeping porch behind it, so if you couldn't go through the hall, you'd go through the door to the windows in that room. No different than a slightly larger bedroom in terms of distance to the windows. Though the windows all drop three stories down onto the alley and back patio, so not like anyone's actually getting out that way on their own.

DCUM suburbanites can holler about firetraps, but they aren't familiar with the architecture in the city. There are thousands and thousands of children living in rowhouses in DC, talk to those parents about how they teach their kids about fire safety, not DCUM.

Nobody I know or have known in a DC rowhouse has an interior bedroom without windows. How did you come up with the 90 percent figure, out of curiosity?

I have seen a couple of them but I agree, it isn’t typical and it’s normally the result of a renovation: enclosing a sleeping porch or expanding a bathroom to include the upstairs dogleg window. In our house, which is a very typical 1500 sf rowhouse built in 1890, the middle bedroom has a window that looks out into the dogleg. The front bedroom has windows onto the street and the rear bedroom has a window to the backyard.