bad ettiquette? There is no room at my gym for deadlifting except inside a squat rack. What other exercises are ‘acceptable’ in a squat rack?
Dude, do whatever you want in the rack. I doesn’t matter. The only time it is bad etiquette is when someone is waiting to use the rack and you are doing an exercise you can do elsewhere. There are many times I have spent my entire workout in the rack.
I do my deads in the squat rack, seems logical to me. Also my situation is the same as yours…Only available area to do so.
Do you mean a power rack? I don’t see how you can DL inside a squat rack. At least not the ones I’ve seen.
At my previous gym there was no other place to DL except in the power rack, so I had no option but to do it there. It’s definitely not bad etiquette!
What is the difference between a Power rack and a Squat rack anyway?
[quote]rubberduck wrote:
What is the difference between a Power rack and a Squat rack anyway?[/quote]
Squat racks tend to be useless for anything but squatting. Some are little more than diagonal metal bars lined with tabs to keep the barbell in line wherever you rack it (like the one at my old gym), and have no safety mechanism. Some are a couple of adjustable columns with a ‘safety’ mechanism to catch the weight if you hit failure. Etc.
Power racks or cages… I’m sure you’re familiar with those. Our beloved rectangular metal frames where we punish ourselves with a variety of pain-inducing exercises. 
my squat rack/power rack at my gym is a combination of those above…it has diagonal bars with no adjustable tabs just fixed ones, but then the safety bars are fixed so you can only just go ATG on squats hence can not be used for DLing but is good for shrugs or pulls from a height…apparantly, its also good for fkn curls too…argh
I deadlift in the squat rack. No other place to use a bar in the gym without risk of braining someone or blocking a half-dozen other stations. I use the rack to load and unload until I get to 315, then just lift in front of the rack. It’s not like anyone at my gym uses it for anything other than curls, anyway.
It is not bad form, and if there is no DL platforms, that is probally the best place to do it. Another plus, you are in a ‘cage’ so it gives you a personal space buffer zone. Nothing worse than trying to lift twice your weight and some schoe walks in front of you.