It is one of those required by code items that do not get thought about until last minute or it is needed by the building inspector. Some people consider the unsightly, but they are most often never noticed. In the addition I put on my house i designed the attic access to be in the master walk-in closet. Here is an image of the ceiling where it should be:

Yup, even the inspector missed it.

A readily accessible access hatch is required by building codes in the US for fire department use if the height of the attic is 30" or more for 30 s.f. of floor area but a ladder or pull down stair is optional. Obviously developers like to save every dollar they can.

There are additional requirements if there's mechanical equipment in the attic.

In the 50's there were few building codes but the Federal Housing Authority issued Minimum Property Requirements (later renamed Minuimum Property Standards).

So Mark, the access wasn’t built?

Res, perhaps in our developer houses the attics are not high enough to require good access. It is accessible if I empty at least over a quarter of my closet (and preferably over half) and remove the top shelf and rod.

The rowhouse had a good centerline that we could stand up in, excellent for storage. Some people finished them for storage but there are no windows so can’t be used as living space, but with the stairs they were great, and I think people did use them as more than storage.

If the attic is not designed for storage and has no mechanical equipment, accessibility is not really an issue.

We have 5 access points in our house and they were all placed on the plans by our architect. It is a spread out one story and the last thing you want is someone having to cross the whole house stepping on trusses with drywall below. Over the years I've seen enough workers slip and put their foot through the ceiling below! 3 hatches are in walk-in closets and 2 pull down stairs in garages. These access points are only for maintenance/repair of systems that are in the attic area. The only area with actual storage is one of the garages that had a floor deck planned into the trusses. Our builder put our extra tile up there.

Attic access went away about the time truss building made “attics” go away. Houses are not stick built, with attics anymore. Trusses aren’t designed to be load bearing for storage. They can be designed for light storage, but that costs extra, and isn’t really good storage. So most of the time it is skipped, and all of that top heavy top hat space is just useless for anything.

It was shown on the drawings, framed, but the drywall installer covered it up.

The Attic Access requirement is not about storage; it's about fighting a fire in the space below combustable roof construction if there's enough headroom to do that. If there's not enough headroom, the fire department will tear the ceiling down so its an important thing to have although they might tear the ceiling down anyway.

Access to mechanical equipment is addressed in the mechancial chapter of the code.

For an inspector to not care does not relieve the owner, designer or contractor from their responsibiliy to comply with the building code.

2014 IRC:

It might also be about seeing that the attic is vacated by little intruders. It’s getting cold here, hence why this question came up.

While it's required in the code for firefighting purposes, it's a pretty safe bet that if an attic needs to be ventilated as part of firefighting operations, firefighters will cut a hole from the exterior side of the roof--preferable from the safety of a bucket or ladder. If they need to get access to an interior knee wall or similar space they'll be using their axes not looking for an access door.

The access to the attics in the house I grew up in (1969) were from the closets, and one was accessed through a regular door. My parents did not want to store anything in the main attic so they did not have stair access to it.

We were cleaning out the parents’ attic, with a pulldown stair in a back hall. That stair was a blessing and a curse. For years, starting from when we moved in, Mom said ”oh, put this in the attic.” So you can imagine. everything from our childhood books to gift bags to pillows and covers, two beds (disassembled). The stairs allowed them to go up there, but also let us take them down again (and to the dumpster, due to the ”mousal evidence” everywhere.

OTOH, it was easy to figure out exactly where the roof was leaking.

They had lights in the attic, connected to the whole-house generator. I think the theory was that in a storm, you could see look for damage without going out in the elements.

The house I use to own, built in 1917, just outside of Detroit had three attics, each accessible by a standard 30" x 80" door.

The Code in our jurisdiction calls for access as well.

If there's a hatch, it must meet at least the current insulation requirements for roofs--R50 in the Greater Toronto Area. Plus, it has to be securely sealed with hook and eye or similar and the bottom must be seated on closed cell insulation or similar. Last time I did a hatch, I had to glue layers of XPS onto the top of the hatch to pass inspection. Since the insulation is many inches above the attic trusses and the ceiling height is very limited, it's not suited for storage.

By contrast, the attic spaces in seven of the eight 19th C. homes I owned and lived in were fully finished. Ditto my childhood Ohio farmhouses.

In our area at least, over the years, the combination of legal height and storey limits has lead builders to increase ceiling heights while limiting attic spaces.

The house we are building in has attic access built in on the plans. It is in the hallway outside the kids bedrooms and bath. I noticed it right off, as the last 2 houses we owned did not have an attic. One was a historic colonial built in the 1860's and the second a Cape Cod style built in the 1960's. Actually I owned a triple decker in Boston before those 2 houses, and lived on the first floor. No idea if the 3rd floor unit had an attic or not.

We don’t have an attic access. Nothing at all on our upper floor. We do have one in garage randomly.

I've lived in two houses with pull-down access to stick-built attics -- my family home c. 1938 and our 1950's ranch. We rented a two-story townhouse with walk-up attic (access from MBR).

We built our current home for us to live on one floor, but with a formal stair to a full-height stick-built attic. A future owner can double this 3000 sq ft house by adding HVAC and dormers, but we aren't paying taxes on 'an attic'. (There are very few small houses in our neighborhood; most were built to the maximum FAR -- 6000 for our lot.)

I would be much more likely to have the pulldown stairs in an accessible hallway if the finishing on the standard systems wasn't so cheap and ugly. I reopened the attic access in one place where it had been closed off and I took the nylon cord with the ping pong ball thing off and put a little loop pull on it that you could attach a bungee cord to, but if I were building a new house if would want the access panel to be flush and identical in surface to the surrounding ceiling. I hate walking in a nicely finished house and seeing that ugly plywood door with the picture frame moulding around it on the ceiling.