STAIRLIFTS HAVE proven to be a blessing for seniors who want to stay in their own homes.  Many of us live in two story houses, and have no desire to move into a  cookie cutter, one story  house in a new sub division. For years, my husband struggled up and down the stairs, until his  knees gave out.  Due to his age and various health issues,  knee replacement surgery isn’t possible.  Therefore, we invested in a brand new, Acorn stairlift.  But now, a year and a half later, the battery is acting up, and the company is no longer responsive to our calls for  repair and maintenance.  Beware of bad stairlift service.

We looked into a stairlift several years ago, and even got a detailed estimate from a bright and personable sales representative who assured us that service was readily  available.  They even tout  their trusty stairlift service on their website : “We employ highly-trained service technicians based all over the USA who are dedicated to servicing and maintaining our customers’ stairlifts”  We were  impressed. .  And then, our fickle hearts lost interest, and we opted out of the installation.  It seemed like a drastic solution, which would change the character of our 100 year old farmhouse.  Then things got worse.  Three years later, we called Acorn, and they had the old bids on file.  They agreed to install the stairlift for the originally quoted price, which seemed like a very generous offer, considering inflation pressures.

The first year, things went pretty well.  Although, we did have to call and remind them that we were due for the yearly maintenance check which was promised as part of the deal.  At that point, nothing was wrong, so  all the service rep had to do was whatever is required just to make sure things are clean and running okay. Mission accomplished.  When you have a machine that is in good working order, you take it for granted that it will always be that way.  But it won’t.  Like any other electrical appliance, it eventually develops some glitches. .  And for us, that’s when the trouble began.

Our battery appears to be in need of charging. .  At least, that’s how it looks to us , as the blinking numbers keep going down.   But it could be something else. We called the Acorn phone  number, and had to wait about 45 minutes on hold until someone finally answered.  Actually, it was an answering service.  Should you have to wait that long for a recorded message?  Anyway, we left a message, and never received a call back.  Finally, my husband drug out the original contract and found the phone number of the salesman who got the commission for selling us the stairlift.  He assured us that we would receive a call by the end of the week. That was a week and a half ago.  Still haven’t heard from them.

Now, we wonder what we’ll do if they’re in the process of going out of business.  However, their website is  active, so they’re still advertising  their stairlifts for sale to  gullible seniors.  Beware of bad stairlift service.