I have an older house. I tried getting into the attic yesterday, and instead of the string pulling the stairs down, the string just kinda pulled itself down.I found some tutorials for replacing the string, but the ones I've found all assume I can get the stairs down first. Unfortunately the attic is positioned right over the basement stairs, so it's a pretty long and uneven distance to the attic.A couple pics of the situation.I have ladder that I could probably use to reach it. It's a 15 foot extension/stepladder/etc combo. I can get one leg extended longer than the other to maybe get it steady on the stairs. Still feels a bit dangerous though.Then there's the question of what do I even do once I'm up there. Do I try to pry the stairs down with something? Do I just drill something into the stairs and pull it down with that?And after all that's accomplished, any specific recommendations for how to replace the string? There was a tutorial that involved drilling an eye bolt into it and security it with a knut on the other side. Feels like the easiest solution but any thoughts on that would be good as well.Or at this point do I just say screw it, this is beyond my DIY abilities, hire someone who knows what they're doing to fix this? via /r/DIY https://ift.tt/2zItYnd
