People that lived in walk up apartments with no elevator, did you like it?

Honestly, doing laundry in the basement when I lived on the 3rd floor was the most annoying part of having no elevator.

Lived 4th floor for 2y (4th floor as in 4th floors up from the ground floor), good for exercise

I was on a fourth floor walk up. It was fine until in one year I broke my foot and my dog's back was paralyzed. Going up four flights of stairs on crutches sure sucked, as did carrying a 50lb dog up and down three times a day.

Third floor (two sets of stairs), ten years with my mother. Groceries were the worst, but you haul and you get used to it. The human brain and body can get used to a lot of things. Carrying groceries is not one of the worst things it can get used to. Not even close lmao.

People who live with stair cases have better overall health outcomes as they age. Turns out that exercise is really good for your health.

Third floor ain't that bad as long as you don't exceed your carrying capacity. Going up 3 floors by stairs isn't much compared to the ~10 minutes of walking back from the store. Really not that bad with a bag each hand.

It starts getting much with places with > 4 floors but that's pretty rare without an elevator. You waste more time waiting for the elevator than actually going up anyway when you're on floor < 3.

That's the norm in most urban centers in Europe. Houses are older than elevators, there's no space for a refit, and rebuilding them from scratch is often not feasible due to the time and cost involved.

I didn't particularly mind it though. Been living anywhere from 2nd to 5th floor without one, and it's perfectly fine.

We also don't buy truckloads of groceries as it works in the US apparently, but pick up stuff we need for the evening or next day on the way back from work, and that's that. I hardly ever broke a sweat from shopping.