Landlord traps woman in her apartment by removing her stairs without warning

Apartment owners were allegedly not aware

Stairs that were removed, allegedly by a woman’s landlord without notice (@foodbattle2008/TikTok)

A woman has accused her landlord of removing a staircase and trapping her in her apartment after she found she was stuck.

The woman, TikTok user @foodbattle2008, shared a video on Tuesday that showed her apartment without its stairs. It was captioned: “Stuck in my lil apartment”.

She wrote: “When your apartment removes the stairs without warning and you’re stuck for hours”.

“It was impossible to get down without climbing over the ledge with a ladder or scaling the side with a decent drop below,” she said in an interview with the Daily Dot. 

“My apartment complex didn’t notify any of the residents beforehand (and still hasn’t reached out since this happened).”

The TikToker added that her neighbour alerted her to the removal of the staircase before she realised what had occurred. It appeared to have been removed for maintenance work.

“We were stuck for nearly 4 hours until the worker finally told me I could come down, and me and my dog hopped an unfinished step so I could let her outside,” she said.

“I called the apartment too and they told me they didn’t know the stairs were being worked on”.

She also said a similar situation occurred at two other buildings in the area, but that she had “no plans to pursue legal action although I’m sure I could, because they were definitely causing a fire hazard”.

More than 900,000 have since viewed the video, many of whom agreed that removing the stairs without warning was a safety hazard.

“Call the fire marshal. It’s a nice hefty fine for them,” argued one person.

“I’m in a wheelchair and one time my university removed the sidewalk to the only entrance to the building with an elevator & put a 5ft trench there”, said another.

“Definitely a fire hazard,” said a third person. “They should have had everyone leave or made a temporary alternative route.”

It was unclear where the TikToker, Olivia Crump, lives.