Pregnant women struggling up flight after flight of stone stairs with shopping and baby buggies, the elderly and disabled stranded, and the feeling that this will go on and that nobody cares. That is the reality of life in Ballymun.
While employers and the unions in the lift engineers' strike argue on, the result of the dispute which has left lifts out of action is the suffering and hardship of the residents of the flats complex.
There are people like Ms Fiona Ryan, who has a five-year-old son, James, and is pregnant. She lives on the 13th floor of one of the blocks. "I can't walk up and down all day, I'm pregnant. You're trying to carry shopping and lots of the women have small children and baby buggies. Lots of friends won't visit me because they can't climb the stairs. Even before the strike, the lifts weren't working properly", she said.
This reporter walked up the 13 flights with her. Halfway up, James wanted to be carried, because he got tired. Ms Ryan lifted him and continued. It took at least 10 minutes to get to her floor, and we were all out of breath.
One lift in the block works occasionally, but when it does it only stops at some floors and there is no light, so it is totally dark inside. The lift gets stuck regularly and the stairs to the flats are steep, dimly-lit, dirty and damp.
Ms Noelene Crean is on crutches. She had a clot in her leg last year and this has left her blood vessels damaged. She lives on the second floor, which may not at first sound difficult, except that it means she has to climb six flights of steep stone steps.
As well as this, she has a three-year-old child and often has to wait for her 16-year-old daughter to return before she can get up or down. "The lifts have been out since last September", she said. "I also have asthma and shouldn't climb stairs. You can't do a week's shopping because there is no way of carrying it up and I'm terrified my child will fall."
Ms Crean said that there were other people who were very hard hit. "There's one man in a wheelchair who lives on the fifth floor and he has had to go and stay with his parents. They had to carry the wheelchair down from the fifth floor. There is complete lack of respect for the people here."
It was dreadful for the older people in the flats, especially those with disabilities such as arthritis. There were also other disabled and elderly people who were completely stuck.
"My own parents can't visit me and haven't been up in my home since May, because they can't get up the stairs, as they both have heart conditions", Ms Crean said.
Mr Jimmy Nolan lives on the 14th floor of one of the blocks. He has a bad back and when the lifts are not working he is barely able to get out. "I couldn't get out for about a week when the lifts first went and when the back gets bad I'd be stranded", he said.
He had to climb more than 30 flights of stairs to get to his flat and there was nowhere to sit down on the way up, it was so dirty. He managed only because a friend came to see him and brought shopping. When he is able to get out, he has to face the climb again. "By the time I get to the top, I tell you, it's a killer."
There are many stories like this. The group of women in the Ballymun Action Committee office said that Ballymun had a bad name and nobody cared.
Another woman there is six months' pregnant. Ms Suzanne Higgins has three children and her youngest is still in the pram. "I ended up going to the doctor. I just haven't been able to handle the pram, the children and the shopping, and it's got to the stage now where I'm paying to have my children minded while I go out shopping", she said.
Ms Higgins said that her seven-year-old did not go out so much. It was not just the strike, the lifts were bad anyway. What was needed was new lifts.