It’s been wet and soggy for it seems like months now, and everything is growing green and damp.
Our porch is made out of untreated wood – before our time, and we haven’t dealt with the yet.
I didn’t really think much of this until Wednesday.
I ran down my back stair, and two steps in the wood gave out and dropped me through the stairway.
It wasn’t far, don’t worry!
I tried to catch myself on my forearms – I always run my hands down the rails when I go up and down steps. Ended up half hanging from the rail, half kneeling on a knee that had hit the step below it, and one foot dangling until I stretched it down to stand up.
I cracked my forearms and my knee pretty badly. The arms were just extremely painful bruises, but the knee swelled up behind the kneecap for two days so I couldn’t straighten it.
Why didn’t I go to the doctor, you ask?
Well, the first day was painful but livable, and I didn’t feel like anything was badly damaged just sore.
The second day was awful. I had pulled all sorts of muscles in my shoulders and the back of my arms and they were all rebelling, and I couldn’t stretch my leg out fully. I called, but my doctor was out, and they said they would call me if something else opened up.
They suggested Urgent Care. Yeah, no. I really didn’t feel this was an urgent care thing, and after a few days, it’s clear it wasn’t so I’m glad I didn’t go. But I had a rough 48 hours there!
But here are some photos! You can see which step failed – part of the wood was so soggy it popped off, then the nails and screws gave out. There are no braces under the steps, the previous owner just screwed nails in through the side of the supports.
Like this:
And the other side:
How lazy is that?!? And I never thought to check the steps, so we had no idea.
My husband fixed it though!
We have no saw, so it was scrap wood of approximate size. We’ll be pulling the individual steps this week and putting new ones with proper bracing in.
Tundra watched while we worked on them, but was generally unimpressed. He doesn’t like having his picture taken though. *smile*
