Michelle Phillips has been trapped in her home for five years (Picture: MEN Media)
A woman with severe medical needs has been trapped on the first floor of her home for 1,827 days because the lift is too small.
Michelle Phillips, from Stockport, Greater Manchester, uses a wheelchair and has a council-installed lift inside her home.
But it isn’t long enough to fit her and her chair inside, meaning the 51-year-old has been trapped upstairs for half a decade.
She marked the five-year anniversary on Friday March 15 by putting the number of days she has been inside in her upstairs window – 1,827.
The former nursery worker said the sign – and balloons outside – give her a feeling of contact with the outside world.
Michelle is worried her health will deteriorate if the problem isn’t solved soon and is pleading for help.
She said: ‘I’ve lost five years of life that I’ll never get back. I’ve fought and fought to get out of here. I’ve done everything I can. I’ve phoned lift companies. I’ve had 16 people in this room for a meeting, but I haven’t managed to get out.
‘It’s not that I want anybody to pay for it, my late parents will pay for it, but I just now can’t find a lift company that will do a commissioned lift – and that’s what I need.
Michelle is worried her health will deteriorate if the problem isn’t solved soon(Picture: MEN Media)
‘We’ve gone as far as looking abroad to try and find one. We nearly got one with a company, but they were outside of England and they would have had to take over 24 hours if the lift broke down.
‘I’ve been trapped in my lift many times, so we need a call out in four to six hours and they couldn’t offer that and they couldn’t do the electrics.’
Michelle has lived in the house since December 1998 and has lived on the same street all her life and does not want to move away.
Carers and a social worker have been helping her over the past five years. She was supported by her late father Stuart before he passed away in November 2020.
She has been trapped upstairs in her home for five years (Picture: MEN Media)
Michelle has lived in the house since December 1998 (Picture: MEN Media)
Michelle added: ‘It’s hard when you have to say goodbye to your father out of a bedroom window and organise his funeral and say goodbye to him on a phone. Nobody should ever have to do that.
‘That’s the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do, watch his funeral service with my friends on a laptop. That killed me. I can’t ever get that back.
‘We were very close, I spoke to him three or four times a day, so being stuck in here… I will never forgive this situation for losing that opportunity.
‘If we found a company who could help me, it would give me my life back, it would be all Christmases at once to know that I’d get out this year. I think it’d be wonderful. I need to get out this year, I have to because my health needs to be dealt with now, it’s got to a serious level.
‘I don’t know what will happen if not, we try not to think, we’ve just got to keep going. Somewhere in this country there is a lift company and somebody would find them and they’ll get in contact with me, I just pray that miracle happens. I just need a company. If anyone out there knows a company [which can help], I’d be so grateful.’
Stockport Council said it couldn’t comment on individual cases but encouraged people contact them to discuss issues – or if their needs change – so it can support them.
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