WTF to do with Servant Stairs

[Anonymous]

You play hide and seek on them. Isn't that the obvious answer?

I used to nanny in a house that had two sets of stairs, games like hide and seek were so much more fun. Also, the back stairs were convenient places to put things you wanted the kids to take up stairs without cluttering the front stairs up. They also worked well to send a kid up to the shower if they came home muddy from soccer practice.

This was in a non-slave state, so they were not built for slaves.

[Anonymous]

You’re exhausting, OP.

And I’m exhausted from rolling my eyes!

[Anonymous]

I had a house in Tennessee that had them. I was planning on getting rid of them and making a pantry space, but I ended up moving for work and selling the house before doing it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is OP, sorry I see I had a typo in my post. I meant do I want to keep stairs that were expressly built for servants, that seems wrong!

I could just call them stairs, but I would always know they were really meant for maids who were to not be to seen on the regular stairs. That's just kind of gross to me.

Maybe you need to get therapy to get over this since you seem to spending way too much time thinking about it.

It was something that was built from a long time ago and carries a sense of history, however bad it was. If you have such issues and cannot get over it, then close it off. Simple. You don't need our permission.

[Anonymous]

reason 1 of 45milion why i always buy new houses

[Anonymous]

they are illegal and against code i'd remove them here is a post of someone doing just that

https://www.instagram.com/p/B2e04kxhiaf/?igshid=1cryavzpsoc6f

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is OP, sorry I see I had a typo in my post. I meant do I want to keep stairs that were expressly built for servants, that seems wrong!

I could just call them stairs, but I would always know they were really meant for maids who were to not be to seen on the regular stairs. That's just kind of gross to me.

I don’t understand why you bought a house that has a feature that is apparently morally repugnant to you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:they are illegal and against code i'd remove them here is a post of someone doing just that

https://www.instagram.com/p/B2e04kxhiaf/?igshid=1cryavzpsoc6f

It's illegal to have two sets of stairs?

Or there are some stairs that don't meet code and are illegal?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is OP, sorry I see I had a typo in my post. I meant do I want to keep stairs that were expressly built for servants, that seems wrong!

I could just call them stairs, but I would always know they were really meant for maids who were to not be to seen on the regular stairs. That's just kind of gross to me.

Good grief you are a snowflake. Find something worthy to worry about. This is stupid

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:Our new old house has those small servant stairs that lead to and from the kitchen. Do people normally take those out or live with them? They are too steep for the kids, I could make it up and down but do I really want to keep in something that was built for SERVANTS?!

Sure. Why not? Just call them what the rest of the world calls, them..... stairs.

Yeah. Or "the back stairs."

Also, what the hell is wrong with servants? I mean, I now just use a cleaning lady, instacart, daycare and ubereats, but its just another name for the same job(s).

I don't think it is quite the same as having someone scurrying up and down back stairs because they weren't good enough to be with the rest of the people in the house.

Oh for the love of god.

Ok, remove the second, useful set of stairs because of some assumed value judgment you have assigned to some previous occupants you don't know, haven't met, and whose perspective you know nothing about.

The amusing part is that if it has a back staircase, it means its likely a big house in this area. So OP is complaining about her classist house that she paid more than $1m for.

+1.

OP, I think you're being ridiculous. But if it helps, back stairs weren't exclusively to keep servants invisible. Servants carried dirty stuff like coal or wood, dirty dishes, even bath water or chamber pots depending on the age of the house. You didn't want that on your carpet, especially before vacuums. Their constant foot traffic would also wear carpets in the main spaces, which were more fragile then.

Anyway, you bought a house built by and for rich (and almost certainly white) people. It's a bit hypocritical to get hung up on the stairs.

[Anonymous]

Would they have been used by slaves? What is the house's history? I would preserve them with some sort of tribute, but I love history and would want to know more.

[Anonymous]

I honestly always wanted them when I was little because the families on Full House and the Cosby Show had them and I desperately wanted to be in those families/houses that I thought were so awesome!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I completely get the OP being weirded out. It would bother me to have slave quarters out back too. “Servant” is a euphemism for slave, if the house is old enough.

No, it's not. Servants were paid, employees. Additionally, as a PP said, things like back stairs weren't created just to reinforce class structures but to keep coal/human waste/food out of the way. It's not as if servants weren't allowed to set foot in the main stairways, its that the running a giant victorian house required a lot of people doing a lot of work. Just like we have freight elevators now, back staircases allowed for work to be performed without damaging things.

[Anonymous]

We have a second set of stairs to the kitchen and just call them the back stairs. They come in handy. My kids have no concept of them being used by servants.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We have a second set of stairs to the kitchen and just call them the back stairs. They come in handy. My kids have no concept of them being used by servants.

Pleaae YouTube server stairs to learn the difference