Safety of Steep Basement Stairs

[Joseph Luma]

I purchased a property that has an awkward basement entrance from the side due to a small addition at one point.  Unfortunately I overlooked this as an out of state purchase.  My contractor built these Jefferson stairs to provide more of a landing up top, it was just a single step before, but I have concerns regarding the safety for a tenant.  The laundry hookups are in the basement so they’d have to use them somewhat frequently. Would you find a way to bring the hookups out of the basement and just padlock the basement to prevent tenant access or just leave as is?