Pivot! Furniture Company Allegedly Abandons Couch Wedged in Staircase After Failed Delivery Attempt

The U.K.-based furniture company is conducting an "interval investigation" of the incident, which caused extensive damage to the home and sofa

Photo: SWNS

A homeowner has slammed a furniture company after they allegedly abandoned a failed attempt to deliver a new sofa, leaving it wedged in a stairwell.

Luke Ansell, 27, had just moved in to his new home in Bournemouth, U.K., in December when he bought a £2,000 (about $2,481) couch. But things went awry when the piece was delivered on January 19, he told SWNS.

Ansell says despite delivery workers assuring him that they made tight deliveries "all the time" the workers from designersofas4u.co.uk failed to get his new sofa up the stairs and instead, left it abandoned stuck halfway up the narrow staircase.

"They got here and I showed them where I wanted it upstairs. I said that it looked quite tight, but they assured me that they do tight deliveries all the time," he tells SWNS. "I just said, 'Oh, well, you're the experts.' They are a delivery company after all. So I just left them to it. They brought it in, they struggled to get it over the bannister and eventually got it in. But then it got jammed, they couldn't get it up or down."

SWNS

Photos of the shocking attempted delivery show how the attempt left huge holes in the staircase plasterwork and damaged the woodwork.

The situation drew comparisons to a famous episode of the sitcom Friends, in which Ross Geller (David Schwimmer) attempts to bring a new sofa up a flight of stairs before getting stuck and shouting "Pivot! Pivot!" (He also fails.)

Ansell says he refused to sign the delivery forms after the delivery workers recommended cutting off his bannisters and then insisted that they had to leave so they could get back to the company's offices in the U.K. city of Birmingham on time.

SWNS

He says the company later rejected his account of events when he complained, with the delivery workers allegedly denying they ever tried to get the piece up a staircase, despite Ansell having "actual doorbell footage of them after they delivered it to my house," he says. "I have a photo of them at the bottom of the stairs after the damage was done too."

Luke and his wife Elouise said that the service was "shocking." "Honestly it was unbelievable, the sofa was over £2,000 and they caused about that much damage delivering it," he recalled.

"It's a brand new house that we had just bought for half a million, and now we have to have the work done to repair it," says Luke. "They've destroyed the plasterboard, and damaged all of the wooden skirting on the stairway. They've also damaged the sofa too. It was just a shocking response by the company, so I'm just trying to raise awareness about their standards of service."

The company told the BBC it was carrying out an "interval investigation" of the incident.

The BBC reported that the firm emailed Luke disputing his version of what happened, claiming the sofa had been "left in a safe place on the landing."

SWNS

A spokesperson for designersofas4u.co.uk's version of events states that upon arriving at the property, the workers warned Luke the sofa would not fit and suggested leaving it in a safe place. They also noted it is a customer's responsibility to check the sofa will fit into the room they want it to be moved into and that Luke was aware of the terms and conditions but insisted and tried to move it with the delivery drivers up to the third floor.

The spokesperson's statement concluded, "We objectively accept that between our delivery team and yourself that damage has been caused.'' They offered a replacement and to pay for reasonable repairs as a gesture of "good will."