Thursday, July 05, 2007

Visita-what?

Look, I spent time in a powered wheelchair in a 1920s-vintage bungalow that was as far from wheelchair-friendly as Superman's Fortress of Solitude, but talk of mandating "visitability" features in private dwellings always puts my hackles up.

When I design my dream home, it's not going to be visitable by a SEAL team with air support, much less a lone individual in a wheelchair; I'm thinking barbed wire and tiger pits, not ramps and braille on the doorbell. It's not that I have a problem with visitors gimpier than myself; it's visitors in general that make me want to release the hounds.

"Avon lady in the wire! Blow your claymores!"

Sorry, just fantasizing for a moment, there...
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23 comments:

T.Stahl said...

You mean, like MG3s flanking the approaches and an AMOS on the roof?

5:44 PM, July 05, 2007
7.62x54r said...

I concur. Even if I become "less mobile" I just won't go anywhere. I've always said that if I'm ever confined to a wheelchair I'll just retire to my basement and sit among my Mosins and spend time on the internet. Of course that's about all I do anyway. Heck, now that you can order pizza over the internet, why do you need to leave the house?

5:54 PM, July 05, 2007
Oleg Volk said...

And with 60-grain practice loads, you could shoot mice with your Mosin.

6:08 PM, July 05, 2007
Anonymous said...

I know of a nice old lady who is confined to a wheelchair who flat-out refuses to move from her split-level house, despite the fact that she only has access to half of it; it was built forty or fifty years ago for her and her husband, and she's declared she'll die in that house, when it's her time.

And I completely concur.

The idea that someone can come into -my- house, mandate that I build things for folks who'll never even be there, just because they -might- need access, is ludicrous.

I'm envisioning a cabin somewhere in the Rockies, two-story, accessible only by wooden stairs up to the deck, and with a narrow, spiraling metal staircase to the second level. The walkway up to the deck stairs will be made of undressed rock slabs and stones taken from a nearby mountain, and will be somewhat uneven. No "wheelchair access" elevators, no handicap bars in the bathroom or shower/tub, and narrow doorways.

Let the Nannies chew on THAT for a while.

6:57 PM, July 05, 2007
Sigivald said...

I've been thinking more along the lines of concrete berms with pits in front of them, filled with blackberries.

And good clear fields of fire.

Reasonably good against zombies, and very good against anyone else.

7:03 PM, July 05, 2007
phlegmfatale said...

Infuriating. I was talking to a Californian recently, and they were appalled that all my lofts are not handi-capable. I tried not to look too smug.

7:26 PM, July 05, 2007
Anonymous said...

My dream house is mostly underground so I can just mow the roof as it's regularly scheduled maintenance. I would consider ramps (for bringing in the gun safes and the artillery) and Braille on the doorbell (why not?). It's the foot thick reinforced concrete walls and doors that are going to perplex the unwanted intruders. That and there is a second door at the end of the entry way with flame throwers guarding it which kick in after the outside door is hydraulically shut behind them. The sprinkler system for the lawn being switched over to gasoline with the flip of a valve might provide some entertainment for those on the exterior--those that survive the large hollow rocks they were using for cover being blasted to bits with a couple hundred pounds each of HE.

Of course you do need to have an escape tunnel (inspired by Heinlein's book "Friday") that allows you be elsewhere when the next team shows up with bunker busters.

Joe Huffman

7:39 PM, July 05, 2007
Anonymous said...

What am I missing here? You throw out a comment about having been in a powered wheelchair, and nobody even blinks.

So am I missing something here? Something that "everybody knows" except me?

I assume some backfill exists somewhere. Can you point it out to some of us relatively latecomers? Thanks! (Seriously in the dark, apparently.)

7:49 PM, July 05, 2007
Anonymous said...

The model railroading hobby has run into the same issue. Any home layout open for an occasional club tour can be considered public space, and certain activists demand accessability. The obvious response is to limit layout tours to personal friends, since offers to carry wheelchairs down the basement stairs didn't cut it.

It's like the PETA protesters at the circus. They don't give an airborne activity about the elephants, they just don't want anyone to enjoy the show.

7:57 PM, July 05, 2007
Tam said...

Back about six years ago, I broke three of my available four limbs in a motorcycle wreck. Snapped the right radius and ulna just above the wrist, which precluded a regular chair.

As a result, I have enough steel in my right leg to build a bridge, but don't limp noticeably unless it's real cold or I've walked a couple miles...

7:58 PM, July 05, 2007
7.62x54r said...

The comment about the model railroads got me to thinking. My basement is actually the only part of my house that is accessible. It's a "drive under" and there are four steps to get inside the front door on the main level. Not to mention a seriously non-code sidewalk. A couple of years ago I saw that the wrought iron rails at the steps needed painting. So what did I do? Got out the sawzall and pitched them in the dumpster of course! If you're to clumsy to get up the steps without handrails I sure don't want you in my house knocking things over!

9:09 PM, July 05, 2007
Anonymous said...

Yeah, I popped a femur once, and got it pinned. But I eventually got the pin removed. At other periods in my life, I also nailed a tibia, and a collarbone -- twice.

Lessee -- that's a slip, an automobile, a bicycle, and a motorcycle. The motorcycle was trivial...it was at zero speed and I rebroke the collar bone.

The auto accident which zapped the femur had to have been the most spectacular event. Any metal I had has been long since removed. So I can negotiate airports with impunity.

However, it sounds as if your motorcycle escapade was a real show-stopper. I'll happily cede the blue ribbon to you. Not that I'd wish the damn thing on anybody, mind you.

I have yet to run across a person that put the motorcyle hurt on themselves and not got back on the horse. I guess that includes me to a minor degree. As I recall, you're still amenable to the occasional sojourn on a crotch-rocket. You ever do that Iron Butt thing?

9:20 PM, July 05, 2007
Bonnie said...

I think maybe no one else asked about your injury either because they knew already, or they just didn't want to know what could happen to confine YOU to an electric wheelchair (Tam the Amazon!)...heh.

Ya know, if non-disabled persons can't come into my house at will, then there's no reason for me to modify it for the handicapped people that I'm not going to let in, anyway.

11:06 PM, July 05, 2007
Anonymous said...

Underneath she's a hyper-alloy combat chassis. Fully armored, very tough.

4:50 AM, July 06, 2007
Anonymous said...

Damn,

I think there's a market for a new home improvement and building magazine:

"Harder Homes and Gardens"

Here's some sample articles:

-Protecting your house against thermal imaging.
-How to set up active security, but still be able to let Fido out inthe morning
-Shutters: How much steel is enough?
-Landscaping to channel attackers

8:18 AM, July 06, 2007
Unknown said...

gee you guys are tuff

9:29 AM, July 06, 2007
Dr. StrangeGun said...

I've been thinking on the cheap lately.

What's been in my head, for places very off the beaten path, is building something like a 50'x50'x20' concrete block or reinforced pour workshop with a thick concrete and red iron top deck (pricey)... and lowering a brand new doublewide on top of it (cheap, and mitigates most of the problems with pre-builts since there's absolutely positively no drift in the foundation whatsoever.)

So I'd have, essentially, a small fortress were I to ever drag everything up top and blow the stairs. Could also double as a hangar...

I'd have a hell of a patio/shooting platform too :-D

10:19 AM, July 06, 2007
theirritablearchitect said...

Don't know how to break this to y'all, but, if the last 15 years of doing what I do has taught me anything, and if the overreaching arm of government intervention is something that you both fear and see, then the future isn't looking too bright for you.

The Americans with Disabilities Act, passed in 1991, is the standard for public building accessibility design and it keeps getting updated and reinterpreted all the time.

If the DemoRats scare you with all of their nannying social welfare BS, then you should be crapping your pants that there are a bunch of grown people who have a emotional development of the average 5-year old, throwing a temper tantrum about "fairness" when it comes to, well, everything, including your own home.

Watch for this exact thing to eventually become law in the not so distant future. It's something that gets added to localities by way of adopting new building codes and regulations, so it's easy for most people to not even know that it's a change to the system, because it's being voted on by your city council members. Since it seems so innocuous to most to think that "new" building codes are somehow "better" (keep in mind how intelligent your average politician is, please), it's always a slam-dunk for this crap to pass.

HUD will have a hand in this as well, as they administer lots of funds for housing, even single-family dwellings, for low and at-risk buyers. From where the money flows, and all that.

Me, I'll be doing what I can (not much) by writing nasty letters to the International Code Council, urging them to avoid all inclusive type language with regard to residential construction, but I'm not optimistic that they'll stay away from exercising those bits, as it's a nice control feature.

Anyway. The best that can be hoped for is that someone will have the sense to be proactive with regards to this in at least a few communities and the beast will get amended down (public housing only, for instance) when the code finally reaches...wherever, thereby mitigating the impact of this kind of crap.

The Greens are on their way too, and I fear that they've been far more aggressive with their agenda in terms of legislation, and they have the ear of quite a few politicians.

http://www.usgbc.org/News/PressReleases.aspx?CMSPageID=163

2:24 PM, July 06, 2007
Anonymous said...

I don't do stairs. Between the knee and the lungs, stairs were one absolute that was unacceptable when I was house-shopping. Steps are a different story. Another requisite was a lot of square footage.

Of course, the offset to stacked living is that when I head off to the bedroom, we refer to it as 'going to the North Wing'. To me, it's a perfectly acceptable tradeoff. Besides, if it weren't for that, and coughing, I wouldn't get any exercise at all.

Best of all, I do have that 800 meter KZ in almost all 4 directions around the house.

Regards,
Rabbit.

2:27 PM, July 06, 2007
Anonymous said...

I find it fascinating that this is all coming from my own state, where a large percentage of the population lives in TRAILERS.

6:38 PM, July 06, 2007
Ambulance Driver said...

"Underneath she's a hyper-alloy combat chassis. Fully armored, very tough."

ROFLMAO...

"And she absolutely WILL not stop EVER!"

4:43 AM, July 07, 2007
Anonymous said...

Rabbit's home design reminded me of the sur... uh, people outside town in _Footfall_, the book Niven and Pournelle allegedly wanted to write, but ended up with _Lucifer's hammer_.
It was built in the shape of an X, but from any ground angle, it looked L-shaped. Long fields of fire inside and out, _Patriots_ level windows and doors, etc.
For above ground, it's pretty much my dream house. Below ground is another story, no pun intended.

2:34 PM, July 09, 2007
Anonymous said...

Someone should ask the survivors of the Branch Davidian Massacre in Waco about the advantages, or lack thereof of "visitability"

8:43 AM, July 24, 2007

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