Our Wheel World
*barks*
Hello You Tube
Hi everybody
We're back
we're back, we've been recovering from England, getting back to
Life
life, and thinking about what kind of content we want to keep doing on Our Wheel World
Cuz we do want to keep doing it, and to that end, we bought ourselves a brand new camera
mhhmmm, we are now shooting on the G9X from Cannon and we think the quality is going to be a lot better
And it will also give us more reason to keep making awesome videos
ya, so we have a bunch of stuff we want to talk about,
but today we're going to talk about how we made our non-accessible apartment accessible
cuz we've had this question before from people and there are a lot of factors to consider
and even though we've been here for 5 years, it's not perfect
there's a lot of problems still
This unit was not designed for accessibility
It has a lot of advantages, but also a lot of drawbacks
so we're going to talk a little bit about that, MTV cribs style
ya we're going to show you our crib
Our accessible crib!
Our accessible crib!
One of the first things we had to do in terms of choosing an apartment building
Obviously was make sure that it was one where the front entrance didn't have a step
Now one of the not ideal parts about this building, even though the entrance is, obviously accessible,
Is that to get to it you have to go up this really really steep driveway
There are alternative entrances to this building, but they are not accessible
So Tim is in a power chair that he can go up and down that driveway
But we have friends in manual chairs who really struggle
and in the winter when its icy, its pretty much a death trap
so that is one trade off that we had to make
So also, when we first moved into the building, they had this door button opener
because obviously Tim couldn't really open the door on his own
So this door was automatic, but oddly enough (let's see if it will focus)
The second door wasn't
Which would still mean that Tim couldn't get in
So we actually asked the building to install a door opener for this second door and they did
legally, they sort of have to, they put up no argument against that
Another accessible thing we looked for was multiple elevators, our building has 3
3 seems to be the magic number
we've never had all 3 go down, we've had 2 go down, and that's frustrating
but at least we're not entirely stuck
So another thing that's not ideal about our apartment is that we live on the 18th floor
which is kind of nice for the view, but ideally we would be on a ground floor
So that if we had to evacuate, or the elevators broke down, Tim could actually get out
that's not something we were able to do when we were looking for apartments, it really limits your options
So its another part of an un ideal situation, but one we've been fine with
Ya, i mean as Natalie said, its tough in terms of needing to evacuate
but touch wood, we haven't had to do that yet
So another thing we had to think about was how Tim was going to be able to open our unit door
So we have a solution, it doesn't always work, lets see if it works this time.
Oh, it worked, there we go, see it automatically opens
so we can come inside, here is our messy apartment, but that is ok
So obviously, the door button opener was not here when we moved in
we installed something ourselves that was not very good
and eventually we lobbied our landlord again to say that they needed to install this automatic door opener
because we claimed it was a rights issue
which it was
and said that everybody else has the ability of access into their units, and Tim doesn't
and its a big company, and you know what, they just did it
Tim has this button on his tray that he can press to open the door
Or for anyone who is inside, they just have to push this
and the door will open just like any other door that you would find in public
Ok so here we are in our dark bedroom because we wanted to show you a newer accessibility feature that we've added
It's not crucial, but its certainly nice, and Tim can demonstrate
Alexa, Bedroom On
We got ourselves an amazon Alexa
An Amazon Echo
An Amazon Echo, and we have added Phillips Hue wifi controlled lights throughout the apartment
and that allows Tim to control all the lights, well it allows anybody to control all the lights with just our voice, which is really nice
We can do the whole apartment on...
We can say, Alexa All Lights On
And they will all come on like so
A way to control lights is really important, we actually always had some way to control lights
We had a remote, we had iPhone controlled lights for a while, but would you say that the voice activated is the best?
Oh absolutely, Alexa is a great new addition to our life, she can also tell jokes
And also little things, like for a long time, Tim can't really see, like when he's lying in bed, he can't see a clock
and he can't pick up his iPhone to look like we might because its on the bedside table
So I used to ask her
He used to wake me up to ask me what time it was to make sure that he wasn't late for work, but now
Alexa, what's the time?
[electronic voice] The time is 3:34pm
Thank you
So that's a nice little bonus as well
That is really helpful actually in the mornings
So another feature that we had to install in our apartment to make it accessible, you saw some of this in our England videos
but this is a ceiling lift, with a track
Ceiling lifts are not cheap, and there is no funding for them, they are about 5,000 dollars
I used to work for the company, so I got a bit of a discount
The tracks themselves are relatively cheap, but you also have to pay for instillation
When I say cheap I mean like a couple hundred dollars, another couple hundred to install them
Another thing to consider when looking at apartments is space to get in and out of doors
And to be honest ours is a little bit tight
So Tim has a pretty good turning radius
But you can see, its not without some
markings
collateral damage
This might be a problem for some people but Tim has learned to live with it, its not ideal, but it's definitely usable.
Tim would have a bit of a harder time coming into this back bedroom here, but he doesn't really use it so it's not of huge concern
But having 2 bedrooms is another consideration we needed in finding an apartment
one because if I go out of town, Tim needs to have someone stay over with him at night
so we need to have something...somewhere for somebody else to sleep
I suppose that could be a sofa bed
but I also needed an office space for myself, and I also like to have my own space in the apartment when Tim has attendants here and whatnot
so again, maybe not crucial, but it felt pretty crucial for us to have a second bedroom as well.
So one of biggest factors we had to consider when moving into a non-accessible apartment was how Tim was going to shower
and for anybody who knows us, they know of the good ol' Tub Buddy
It has seen better days, but we are still using it
essentially we found this piece of equipment, that we crowd sourced, actually back before crowd sourcing was even really a thing
because it was about 3 thousand dollars that we didn't have
so essentially what this does, i'm not going to show you Tim actually taking a shower,
But in the bedroom Tim goes from the bed, you can see my bear there, to this Tub Buddy system here
and then his attendant, let's see if I can do this where it makes any sense
is going to push him in this chair, down the hallway
Our bathroom is extraordinarily small, and in fact the door width was so small that we had to take the door off
to give us enough inches for the Tub Buddy to fit in
So as you can see, we have no bathroom door, which is a bit of a bone of contention for me
And instead we've had this curtain for about 5 years
So his attendants will push him in this chair to right about here
You can see there is a piece that fits in the bathtub, which I also have to move around when I shower
And essentially, i'm not going to do it all, but there is a bridge that connects these two pieces, and Tim can then slide over into the shower
to take a shower
Accessible bathrooms are one of the biggest concerns for a disabled person trying to fit into an non-accessible space
This is the solution we came up with. Unfortunately the Tub Buddy is quite broken all these years later
There's no more breaks, a lot of the fittings on this piece don't work anymore, we're down to sort of one suction cup, so hope it sticks
and the cost of a Tub Buddy has now gone up to about 6 thousand dollars that we don't have, and we can't find any funding for
So I hope to make another video in the future talking about the problems with acquiring vital equipment
because i'd say that showering is pretty vital
But this is the situation we have. It does allow Tim to shower in this very non accessible bathroom
and it's what's working for us right now
So we hope you liked our video about our accessible apartment
There are probably some other things that we aren't even thinking about, but I think we covered the majority of things that make this accessible
and if you have any questions, let us know
And thank you to everyone who has subscribed
we've been getting new subscribers even though we haven't posted a video in a while so that's
That's really cool
that's really cool and it gives us a reason to keep going and keep making videos
So thank you to everyone, share this with your friends and get them to subscribe and we'd love to see you on our channel
Bye
Bye
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