And that is the reason not to have them in your house when you are older. In your house they are nothing but a hazard. Use the Stairmaster in the gym or walk up and down the stairs in public buildings if you want to incorporate stairs in your exercise program; you have the option to skip those if you develop physical problems in your 70s or 80s that make the use of stairs hazardous. That's often not true of the stairs in your house.
The one thing my father regrets about buying his current townhouse is that it has stairs. He's having more and more trouble managing them, even though he was reasonably active in his younger days, and on at least one occasion took a fall down them that resulted in his having to go to the ER to rule out a head injury (as he fell, his head hit the stairwell wall hard enough to punch a hole in the drywall - and he was on Coumadin at the time).
I don't care how well you eat and exercise, you're not guaranteed to avoid mobility problems in old age. So why not plan accordingly?
The one thing my father regrets about buying his current townhouse is that it has stairs. He's having more and more trouble managing them, even though he was reasonably active in his younger days, and on at least one occasion took a fall down them that resulted in his having to go to the ER to rule out a head injury (as he fell, his head hit the stairwell wall hard enough to punch a hole in the drywall - and he was on Coumadin at the time).
I don't care how well you eat and exercise, you're not guaranteed to avoid mobility problems in old age. So why not plan accordingly?
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