Perspective

bottom, as we only can see the treads not the risers (that small inset underneath a step).
- And you can see the wear on the treads. plus the handrail mount in the top left would be at a very inconvenient height if we were looking from the bottom up
  
  The handrail argument doesn't make any sense. It would be at the same height regardless of direction.
  
  It's at the top, I have that same bannister mount, it points upwards to the banister.
  The mattress is wedged at the top of the stairs thanks to its extreme springiness.
- It's the top of the stairs because in the top left of thr image you can see the banister support. If the mattresses were at the bottom then the angle of that support would be different
  
  Why is no one else talking about this.
  There's no debate. It's at the top of the stairs.
  
  when the mattress is at the top, where is gravity and on what is it resting?
- I think it's bottom too but I don't agree with your reasoning, I've seen steps without that bit.
  Edit: actually now I think top, I've been convinced by the daylight argument plus the realization that is a single mattress folded in half (I previously thought it's two mattresses).
  Edit: changed my mind again, made a top level comment
  
  How does the single mattress in half bit make you think it's at the top? If it were at the top, the force of the mattress trying to straighten itself out would push it down the stairs. Much more likely the mattress was pushed/ tossed/ fell down the stairs and got folded in that position, imo.
  Edit: the shadows are also indicative of it being at the bottom: light source from above and and from the sides at the base of the stairs, either from an open door or window. Shadow cast from the door light source being cancelled by the light source from above the stairs.
- That's what I was thinking too
  
  You live in fancy houses!
- Some stairs don't have different looking risers, but you're still correct because you can see wear marks from steps on the carpet.
- agreed

I have those stairs with that carpet.
💯% this is looking down to a mattress at the bottom of the stairs.
Conclusive evidence:
\ Looking Down
Looking Up
\
(Sorry I was too lazy to get the low perspective)
- Not convinced. It's a different set of stairs and a different carpet. I have had stairs with a carpet more similar to the OP that did not have a riser. See elsewhere in these comments for a photo of these stairs, now bare. In the distant past, they were carpeted.
  
  I think they're cheap stairs without the bullnose. Makes it way easier to carpet. By the looks of the trim this is not a fancy apartment. The lack of bullnose contributes to the optical illusion.

While I'm not 100% certain it's not just confusing perspective, it does appear that the slope rise is shorter than the run, suggesting that this is from the top of the stairs.
- I think the railing gives it away.
  
  Yeah, that too.
- Nice catch. The carpet wear corroborates this.

How are y'all arguing this? The banister makes it unquestionably obvious that it's at the top. There's no debate to be had here unless the banister was intentionally installed wrong just for the purpose of this meme, which would be crazy.
The mattress is at the top, y'all.
- So the people walk on the wall? (Wear of the carpet and lack of visible ledge that stairs should have)
  
  My stairs don't have a visible ledge. I don't know why people are acting like that's standard. I think only one of the homes I've lived in has had a stairwell with ledges.
  
  I guess I should address the "wear" on the carpet as well: it doesn't look worn to me, it looks disturbed. Like before this person tried shoving their mattress up the stairs and got it stuck, they carried a heavy dresser or or something up the stairs and dragged it up each stair, sliding it along the carpet. I suspect this is a person moving into a cheap efficiency apartment, since the one my father moved into last when he was still alive looked extremely similar.
- So if we are looking up the stairs then why is the carpet worn on the front and center of each stair step?
  
  Because people drag shit up the stairs and that's extremely cheap carpet?
  
  https://lemmy.zip/post/43413172/20045941
- There's no banister in the picture. It looks like maybe there's a support for a banister, but that doesn't magically make the tops of the steps into the sides of the steps.
  
  If you are so pedantic so as to not consider the support for the banister as part of the banister, then frankly I have no interest in the necessary effort required to discuss this or any matter further with you.
  
  Ok. Then use what you know of gravity and look for things that should be the other way if this were at the bottom.
- And do you suppose the banister would be installed if the mattresses were at the bottom?
  
  If our view was from the top looking down at the bottom then the banister would be rotated 90 degrees towards us.
- IKR. This was the obvious answer 24 hours ago but here we are discussing wear patterns and contrast.

From the wear patten on the carpet I would say bottom, but the handle to the side makes me think top !....
- Could be a sconce instead of a weirdly placed handle.
- The handrail probably has the hangers perpendicular to the railing instead of plumb to the ground. Just the cheapest ones you can get.
- It’s a curtain rod to a window midway up the stairs. We’re looking down a flight of steep older stairs. The mattress is lit by the window that is (mostly) under the rod, and by an open door at the bottom of the stairs.

Bottom, we can see dust and debris accumulated on the "run" part of the steps.
- And you don't see the nosing of the steps.

At the top-left corner of the image we see a support bracket for the hand rail. The orientation of this bracket only seems to make sense if we are at the bottom of the stairs looking up at the mattress. The shadow cast by the mattress also looks like the light is above and slightly closer to the camera.
If we were at the top looking down, that would imply that the hand rail brackets were sideways instead of being vertical, and that the light was mounted on the wall instead of the ceiling. I have seen stranger things in construction but it would still be strange and unlikely.
- So people walk on the face of the stairs now? 😁 Look at the wear of the carpet on the stairs.
  
  Old carpet will show wear as people kick / drag against the backs of the steps. This is especially true for cheaper construction where the steps don’t have the typical overhang.

The biggest factor IMO is something no one mentioned yet: we can only see one face of each step (either the top or the wall). If a photo is taken from the bottom, we would almost always be able to see the tops of the first few steps, which isn't visible here. If a photo is taken from the top, the walls would pretty much never be visible (if they were, you could also see the photographer's feet).
Therefore, this photo is only consistent with a photo taken from the top.
It is possible that this is an extremely long flight of stairs or that the photo was taken from a deliberately deceptive angle, but if that's the case I have to say it was expertly done, because I am CERTAIN that we are looking from the top and the mattress is at the bottom.
- Nah, the hanger for the banister is very common, it protudes from the wall and turns up into the bottom of the handrail, therfore we are looking from the bottom up.
  
  It's going at an angle, not up. It's 90° from the handrail itself, which is sloped to match the incline of the stairs.
- Exactly right. The steps sit on the risers. If you can't see both it's from the top.

Bottom, you can see the carpet on the steps are worn out.

Thought something was weird here. The contrast and colour is making it difficult. If you turn up shadows it changes the entire feeling, including where the obvious light source is. I wouldn't expect the dark side of the mattress unless there was a bright light directly above it.
Also the banister/handrail arm wouldn't be horizontal. Most importantly, congrats, you got me invested.
- No, the light could still be above the mattress on the ceiling at the bottom of the stairwell. This proves nothing.
  But, the wear on the carpet indicates to me that those are the treads, so this is taken from the top of the stairs looking down. Also, not mentioned elsewhere, there is usually a nose on the treads and the carpet would follow the nose, which can't be seen from above.

top. you can see part of the handrail on the top left of the picture
- I think that's a heavy duty banister bracket, like this one:
  Some banister brackets have a swivel type arrangement so that the bracket can be vertical underneath the handrail, no matter the angle of the handrail. Basic heavy duty brackets like this one are completely fixed in orientation, so they're installed with the vertical support at an angle to support the handrail. I suspect the bracket in the photo is at a 45ish degree angle and only looks vertical due to the perspective. The banister has been deliberately cropped out of the photo to make the perspective as confusing as possible.
  Personally I think the photo was taken from the top of the stairs looking down, based on the wear in the carpet.

Bottom, these stairs have a rounded lip to make them compliant with rise over run requirements in limited space.

Top the railing gives it away
- And if you actually think for a moment you realize nobody carpets vertical parts of the steps
  
  They absolutely do, and you're arguing for the opposite position of the person above you

I think it is the bottom of the top of the stairs because of the lighting to the bottom left of the mattress. That should be in shadow from the mattress if it was at the bottom of the stairs.
- Not if the mattress is coming in from an outside door. That light could be daylight. In fact I believe this to be the case.
  
  Curses!
  
  We are looking down on the mattress and it is casting a shadow on the step below it. If we were looking up at the mattress it would be casting a shadow across the stairs in front of it.
- Could be that there's a door or window that's contributing a lot of light down low, spilling under the mattress.
- Definitely the bottom of the top. Or is it the top of the bottom?

Bottom, look at the wear of the carpet, lots of people have walked here.
- Not just that, but the steps seem unreasonably tall and get shorter in the distance.
  
  Maybe but we don't know where this is, stair styles could vary in different regions.

Bottom.
The risers on the stairs are not visible.
The wear on the carpet goes right to the edge. That's consistent with people stepping on it, not kicking it on the way up.
If it's at the top, the mattress doesn't appear to have any of its weight resting on a step. It could be so wedged in that it's being held in place, and that it was wedged that way by someone awkwardly pushing at the ends of it in a way that wouldn't seem to give them enough leverage to do that. But the obvious explanation is more likely, that it's at the bottom of the stairs.
- If it was at the top those would be some big steps you'd have to lift your leg up over

I know as someone who has rabbits and cats that the hairfall on the close to camera stairs indicates we are at the top looking down. I know hair patterns.

The mattress is a metaphor, it doesn't matter where it is.
- There is no mattress.
  
  The cake is a lie.
  
  Omg you are right!

Bottom. Wear marks from foot traffic + if that were the top. those mattresses would tip backwards unless someone was holding them in place.

Steps in a staircase have two measurements. Tread and rise. The proportions of what we can see make more sense as treads rather than rises. Therefore the mattress is at the bottom. Also what we can see of the handrail would make sense in either direction.
- it's about the wear patterns in the Berber.
  that's the bottom of the stairs because we're looking at the treads.

Bottom. Carpet is really worn on the side facing us

On the top.
On the top left you see something... The holder for the railing...
- Can still be the bottom

Trick question. It is actually stuck halfway along the entire staircase; the stairs go further on behind the mattress. 😤

Yes.
- technically correct etc ;)

The metal bar on the top left indicates it's at the top.

Yes

This is gonna be our white and gold/black and blue dress, huh?
- I don't think so. This mattress is pretty clearly black and blue, unlike the dress.

I’m a stairs half full kinda person

If it were from the bottom looking up, that'd be some tall risers. So I think we're looking down.

The carpet has wear on one side, and it doesn't make sense for the wear to be on the front of each stair, so most likely we're looking down from the top of the flight of stairs.

It’s white and gold!
All joking aside, most stairs that I know had some sort of overhang, which we don’t see in this picture, so I’ll venture to say that we are looking down. The mattress is at the bottom of the stairs.

top or bottom doesnt matter, whats important is that you PIVOT!

We could be looking at the stairs from underneath.
- awh shit, i clipped through the geometry again
  
  Wall haxx

The wear on the steps say bottom

Top. Stairs aren't that tall.

Yes

Plot twist: Stuck in the middle.

Unless it is floating, it's at the bottom.

We are at the top.
Suppose the mattress is at the top. Why would someone fold the mattress into a V shape and not push the point forward?
Also, it makes sense that someone would try to fold it into a V, shove it, laugh that it is stuck and take a picture.

Blue/black

Up and down are manmade constructs, so I assign the direction thatthe mattress is as the top of the stairs. Move the mattress to the other end? Well that's the top now, just how it has to be /j

does the trim look weird to anyone else
- I just assumed that this was near where they joined a photo from the top of a set of stairs with a photo from the bottom of a set of stairs.
- Yeah.
  It’s below that grab bar thing and looks like old shit. I’m guessing a stud is there and the wall isn’t flat so it’s poking out and they joined the moulding there too. Or a shit repair like I’d do.
  Also I say the mattress is at the top because lighting and the stair surfaces look like vertical riser height but that’s just grasping.
  
  but that’s just grasping.
  Heh. Banister jokes, classic.

Bottom. Angle isn’t right to be the top.

There are no stairs.

Bottom. The spacing/size of the stairs is the biggest clue. If we were at the bottom, it would indicate that the stairs are very tall and not very wide. As others have said, the worn carpet is also an indicator, as the carpet on the side of the stairs would not be worn. It would also likely have something sticking out like most stairs, not just flat.

Middle, obviously

The correct answer is fuck whoever took this picture.

Yes.

You can literally see the rail in the top left. It's at the bottom.
- Perhaps it is a weird wall-mounted lamp 👀
  
  It's a wall mounted lamp, but the mattress is at the bottom because of the stair wear pattern
- Or sconce.

Based on lack of shadow, bottom.

Who the hell puts carpet on their stairs? What year is this? 1973?
- There's nothing wrong with carpeted stairs.
  
  Well dear friend, let's agree to disagree. I wish you a pleasant end of the day!
- People who are too cheap to refinish old stairs. Source: I bought a house that had carpet on the stairs, and when we pulled up the carpet we discovered a worn out eyesore that cost thousands to update. In our case the previous owners were a cash strapped family of two young kids with a third on the way. They needed a bigger place for their family so I don't fault them for going cheap on the stairs. The all-white paintjob and industrial grey carpet in the photo scream "landlord special" to me, so I'm less inclined to be forgiving in my assessment of the stairs in the photo.
  
  Interesting. My parents' apartment had carpeted stairs when they bought it (when I was around 3). About a decade later they completely renovated the kitchen and naturally the renovations creeped into other parts of the home. One of the builders showed them that underneath the carpet were beautiful stone steps. They instantly decided to take out the carpet, and the stairs are bare to this day. Here's a photo I took just now (obviously from the bottom looking up):
- Better grip where it counts.
- Carpet is softer and more enjoyable to walk on than hard floors. I will never understand this weird anti-carpet trend we've gotten into in the past decade, except that it's the same thing as grass lawn emulating the wide expanse of the wealthy.