Take a look at the news section of http://www.geocities.com/thebigbrothershow and more specifically this image:
http://img47.photobucket.com/albums/...ow/bbhouse.jpg

There used to be a overhang around the entrance where the stairs were, but now it's flat. Also, the News of the World plan, which was right about most things, showed the stairs replaced by a walkway out of the house.

So it looks like the evictions will be slightly different. Housemates will leave through a kind of tunnel and won't have to get their suitcase up and down the stairs!

i have a feeling someone disabled may be going in

no stairs this year

a slatted wooden walkway through the lounge area

anything else anyone notice?

i seriously dout they would spend all that money making the house disabled friendly when that person could go in the first week

it doesnt cost that much to make a house user friendly to wheelchairs

But what about the hot tub and mud baths? You have to go up steps to get to them unless there's a ramp I can't see. I know disabled doesn't necessarily mean in a wheelchair but if they've put ramps for the small steps in the lounge what about the garden... and why would they put ramps in at all if they knew there'd be a disabled person? They'd have left it at all one level like previous years.

Shame, I know I’m in a minority but I quite liked the stairs. imo entrances and exits through normal ground level doors would look daft on a house that size. The stairs made them a bit more grand and created a bit of distance between the house and the audience, walking straight out of the house into the audience just wouldn’t look like

I doubt anyone disabled will enter the Big Brother house - but some of them will be leaving in a wheelchair!!! EVIL!!!!

maybe that was the plan all along ....anyone who went to an audition would be able to answer the question ....did they ever see anyone in a wheelchair at an audition ?

i know one disabled guy who would go into BB at the drop of a hat and he can get up and down out of his chair and can use a garden

I loved the stairs! You're right, they definitely made entries/exits much more grand. Also, if you're in the audience at an eviction night, you actually stand a chance of seeing the evictee leave if they are at the top of a great big staircase.

Personally I don't think this "ramp" is anything to do with a disabled HM. it just looks like a way of connecting the main living area to the bedroom...a path if you want. The uneven floor was probably one of the things the producer was referring to when he said the house would be "difficult to live in". Plus the "ramp" was shown on the NOTW plan, which was months ago now.

yep i think its to do with the house beeing difficult to live in

being difficult to live in makes more sense...
surely this house would have been designed months ago, probably not long after they started auditions, maybe even before and unless they actually planned on having a disabled person in the house, which isn't too likely because those who replied may not be the type of people they wanted, then i reckon they've simply just changed it to give the house a different feel/look!

I don't think that the woodern ramp is for disabled people either. If you look, either side of this ramp you have a quite sheer drop - it's more like a stylistic insert into the house rather than a useful thing for disabled people - I think it would be quite mean to make a disabled person go up the ramp when it has no siderails

Its as if they've put in different textured areas. I wonder if thats to help them find their way about if, for example, according to one rumour , they are subjected to power cuts after dark. ( maybe not .. they might drop off the sides if they can't see the edge in the dark and end up suing endemol)

I think it would be better without stairs but it wouldn't give the housemates much time to walk out of the house and in to the studio, unless the house is much further back this year.

Make them do a lap around the house and then walk to the studios.

If it was a disabled housemate,it wouldnt require loss of the stairs-They could easily take them out via the camera runs ect.

Everyone should get the same experience. It wouldn't be fair.

I thought another idea of the stairs being there,and indeed the double doors, was to keep the remaining housemates as far away as possible from the main door when it opened on evection nights, so they are less likely to hear any specific crowd reactions.

I've been wondering too, if there might be a wheelchair user this year..there seems to be a lot of things that point towards it.

And I dont see any reason why there shouldnt be.

The thing with the stairs was it took ages for the evictee to get from the house to meet Davina as they had to go up the stairs then back down them. Having a flat exit through the house (the main living room is in the same place, so it'll still be away from the crowd) with double doors at either end, would make it alot quicker, and have the walkway flow seemlessly from inside to out. It wouldn't surprise me if that wooden path leads right through the house into the studio!

I don't like the idea of them walking straight out of the house into the crowd, BB1 & BB2 had the bridge, BB3 & BB4 had the stairs - but the way BB5 is shaping up we won't have any notable 'Walk Of Shame'

Well Spotted

its not a disabled person how would they be able to compeate in the tasks

and i know they could change them but i cant see tham going through all this trouble just for somebody who may get evicted in week one

the wooden path leads to the garden, Evictions with the stairs took no longer then they did with the bridge. It's the Housemates moment. it isnt supposed to be a rush job, let them enjoy it for