WTF to do with Servant Stairs

[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.

Your house is built on land that was violently seized or at unlikely best conned out of Native Americans. Do you worry about that, too? If not, you seem to be indulging yourself with feel-good self-congratulatory guilt. Use them and be grateful you have a home, especially one with front and back stairs.

[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. People still have servants. You do know that, right? Do you have a housekeeper? Gardner? Nanyy? Anything of the sort? What exactly do you think those jobs are? We just don't call them servants, but those professions are to...perform a domestic service, aka serve. Servant, one that performs duties about the person or home of a personal employer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Right? “Look everyone at how woke I am. This house used to have servant stairs but that offended my sensibilities so we boarded them up.”

But in the meantime I still employ people to do the things I don't want to do, however I am now allowing them the luxury of having to walk the long way around to scrub my toilets rather than taking the direct path up the back stairs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

If the home was built before 1860 these were absolutely not paid employees.

And seriously, “work to be performed without damaging things”?! The point was to hide the help. I don’t care what the OP does with the staircase but let’s be honest about history.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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. People still have servants. You do know that, right? Do you have a housekeeper? Gardner? Nanyy? Anything of the sort? What exactly do you think those jobs are? We just don't call them servants, but those professions are to...perform a domestic service, aka serve. Servant, one that performs duties about the person or home of a personal employer.

Also, I’m not the OP but no, lots of us don’t employ servants in our home… and even if I did, I wouldn’t consign them to a hidden staircase to keep them out of sight.

[Anonymous]

Oh get over yourself OP! Classic attempt at virtue signaling.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

If the home was built before 1860 these were absolutely not paid employees.

And seriously, “work to be performed without damaging things”?! The point was to hide the help. I don’t care what the OP does with the staircase but let’s be honest about history.

Your history is questionable at best, particularly since OP never stated where her house is located.

[Anonymous]

I went through the house my grandmother grew up in during the Great Depression. Her family employed several servants and there was a round hole in the dining room floor that used to have a buzzer attached so her father could tap it with his foot during meals when he needed the servant to come up. They also showed us the hole in the basement floor that served as the servant’s bathroom facilities. So, there are likely worse things in the history of your home than a useful staircase.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

If the home was built before 1860 these were absolutely not paid employees.

And seriously, “work to be performed without damaging things”?! The point was to hide the help. I don’t care what the OP does with the staircase but let’s be honest about history.

Your history is questionable at best, particularly since OP never stated where her house is located.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Any concerns about your Master bedroom?

Damn. Never have thought that is where the term came from.

It came from Sears in the 1920s. Has nothing to do with slavery. If anything people should be pissed that it’s a male descriptor. There’s no Madame Bedroom.

Wait is that true? The term master bedroom was invented by Sears?!

Yes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

So you are telling me you schedule your housekeeper to come hang and clean when you have guests over?

[Anonymous]

We have kitchen stairs in our 1880s house. I really like them because they are more convenient than the main stairs. Aldo my main entry stairs don't get banged up going up and down them which is nice since my floors were a small fortune to restore.

Sound slike you are maybe too large and out of shape to use yours? In that case just avoid them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Get a servant and put the stairs to use?

This. Servants aren’t illegal- unless you are not paying them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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!

That's so funny. I used to live in a Victorian in Shaw that had kitchen stairs, and I remember a 7-year-old visitor saying, "you folks are just like the Cosby's." A family we were nothing like.

This!! Every 90s sitcom had them! Full House, Cosby, Step by Step, Boy Meets World. Obviously it was because it made sense for the tv show set, but they were ubiquitous on TV!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Get a servant and put the stairs to use?

This. Servants aren’t illegal- unless you are not paying them.

Many of us have "servants". They're called housekeepers now. My "servant"/housekeeper comes twice a month, and I pay her well and am grateful for her "service".