We have one of those in our other bathroom, but the one in the bathroom last night, is a short clear plastic type shutoff one. I doubt my wife would've had the hand strength to turn it and I couldn't get it. Besides that, the maintenance man told us that it would probably be too rusted/corroded to turn it. I'm going to find out how he turned the water off at the meter and do that if we have another leak someday. Only thing is, on crutches, that would be hard also.
Oh yes! My wife was stressed last night. She told me, "if you were ever to be disabled (not able to walk), I'd have to quit my job and stay home."
Yep, it's doable when you're young and invincible but just changing my lightbulb in my porch light took the tall ladder and I still had to go to the top and had nothing to hold onto and here I am looking up and trying to screw a bulb in that wasn't going in easily...I was afraid I'd fall.
When I moved here, I bought a large ladder, such as we used to use when I was in the fire department, that can be raised up by a rope to reach any part of the house. Sixteen years ago, I painted our house using that ladder, and I positioned it all by myself. Now, I am thinking of selling the ladder because I can't even lift it.
Yea, my big ladder is pretty heavy but I have a few smoke alarms that are in the areas where I have a very high ceiling. The smaller ladder works ok for the rest though. The tall one might be 10 ft.
I can reach the top of the third floor with mine, but that doesn't do me any good if I can't lift it. Now, I am going to have to think of a way to bring the topic back to toilets and plumbing problems or I'll have to ban myself.