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▲ washadjeffmad 6 hours ago

The most essential unspoken purchase for anyone living higher than the ground floor in an older building is an emergency escape ladder.

▲mhb 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Is that because a fire extinguisher is spoken or that it's not essential?

▲bluGill 2 hours ago | parent [-]

A fire extinguisher will not get you out. A fire extinguisher it to clear a path so you can get to the path outside. Many people get this wrong - they put the fire extinguisher by the door, but if you are at the door you should be going outside not trying to fight the fire. (most fires are small enough that you can put them out with a fire extinguisher so this seems to work - but that is not the primary purpose)

What you need is a path out when there is a large fire. Both exits and fire extinguishers are part of that. Everything else is a nice to have (sometimes very nice), but you still have to prepare for when everything else fails.

▲paulryanrogers 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Is this really a phenomenon? Where and since when?

No one told me in either of my apartments.

▲walthamstow 6 hours ago | parent [-]

In my 4th floor apartment in Tokyo there was a box containing what seemed to be basically an abseiling harness. Instructions in Japanese but seemed like if shit hits the fan you smash the window, clip it to the building and get yourself down to street level asap.

▲vidarh 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Our AirBnB in Tokyo last year had a box mounted on the balcony which (according to the instructions on the outside) held some crane-like thing with a harness to let you swing out over the balcony and rappel down in the case of emergency.

▲slfnflctd 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

My parents had something very similar to this in their apartment in the midwestern US in the 80s. I recall it as being an aluminum mount with a chain ladder.

▲dd8601fn 3 hours ago | parent [-]

I remember those often being mentioned in “keep your home prepared in case of fire” educational materials, too. I’ve just never actually seen one.