American Reacts to a Typical GERMAN APARTMENT
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- Опубліковано 14 тра 2024
- Thank you for watching me, a humble American, react to German Apartment vs American Apartments. This was very interesting! Thanks for subscribing!
source: • Typical German Apartme...
The fact that are houses, somewhere, that don't have a hallway, and you walk directly into the living room, is even weirder to me...
If you've ever seen The Simpsons, that's an example of a house without hallway.
If I read correctly, in the ancient past the hallway was the most important room of the house. It was where the fireplace was, where you ate and where you slept. Look up "Hall House" at Wikipedia for more info. Then over time, the hallway reduced in size as other rooms became more important.
Houses without a hallway, houses that directly access the living room; you could either say the hallway just disappeared entirely as a natural progression. Or you could say the Americans went back to the past and you could call their living room the hallway-the most important room of a house-once again.
Tbh. im looking for a apartment, where I open the door and I'm instantly in a big living room (kinda like HIMYM), but its kinda rare to find in germany.
@@Tudas Yeah, I don't think houses are built like that in Germany... nor in The Netherlands (where I'm from)
@@amyloriley the simpsons have a hallway, even two
same for me. but it guess alot of it comes down to "what you grew up with". i need a sperate room with a door for anything. i hate having an open door behind my back and i dont wanna hear what other people in the house/apartment are doing, nor have them hearing what iam doing. and i could never be friends with an living room kitchen, those 2 rooms have to be seperate, with a door and a hallway between them. when iam on the sofa, watching tv, the thought of seeing the kitchen makes me feel, that iam living cheap and cant have seperation. and yes i know, even houses build new from the ground up nowadays here in germany, have a open living kitchen. its just not my style. i could never live in a loft
An apartment or house where you walk straight into a room would be a no no for me.
Door open and there goes the heath in the winter
Most of the time even the living romm...☹
@@daphneschuring5810 Americans don't care.
Yeah, I appreciate the personal space. I do not need everyone in my living room.
Heating and airco are free in the US?@@jorgs.2797
locks on doors are great for several reasons:
- lock yourself in the bathroom if guests are over
- lock yourself in your room when you have annoying little siblings
- lock little kids out of the pantry or storage rooms to keep them safe
Lock yourself in from the Finanzamt and the GEZ guys...
- lock in a kid in a really bad mood is also something i witnessed at several places
@@CJO-no1 NOBODY EXPECTS THE GERMAN FINANZAMT!!! 🤡
@@CJO-no1 you DO NOT have to open the door for GEZ (or whatever they're called these days) nor for the FInanzamt or really anyone (except the police in emergencies) the "Unverletzlichkeit der Wohnung" inviolability of the apartment... is one of the most important rights in germany Art 13 GG
@@LoFiAxolotl when they come with the Gerichtsvollzieher you have to at least technically. You can leave the country before they arrive...
"The door knob looks like it's industrially made." - Uhm, of course it does. Because it is. How are American door knobs produced? Carved manually? Cut from paper?
I guess I have to find a video of a typical American apartment^^. Or maybe you, Ryan, can give us a little room tour and show us all the differences in your house?
I was laughing, too. Industrial made. Not crocheted. 😂
I like German doorhandles because the door can be opened with slippery hands (cream) or even with an elbow.
This is very nice when opening the door of a public toilet. Nobody needs to really touch them.
And they can be turned downwards so that cats cannot jump on it.
And they are very easy to fix when they get loose with the years.
These knobs are always annoying me.
Oh thank god someone made that comment. xD I heard him say tzazand went straight to looking for this. 😂
@@katrincarstens5125 I also used a foot (when I was younger), the shoulder and even the hips to open a door, when I had my hands full.
biggest advantage for separate mattresses is you can pick your individual hardness
Plus if your partner moves a lot at night you feel it less when they're on a separate mattress. 👍
On the other hand I have vivid memories of crawling into my parents bed at night after I had a nightmare and then getting swallowed by the crack in the middle of the mattresses. 🤣
He said "hardness" huh huh huh
@@eaglevision993come on he's a TODDLER!
that's cool
@@eaglevision993 Alright, the advantage is an individual resistance to localized plastic deformation then
There are locks on every door because they are made with a lock.
Buying a door without a lock ist more expensive. 😂
For most doors I put the key away because I don't need to lock them, but the option remains.
Thats the reason for the simple Keys in lot of locks. Nearly every Door in Germany comes with the Cutts for the Handle and Key hole. You can either buy a long Face plate which covers the Keyhole or is open. The difference is literally nothin in price having one with or without Keyhole, same goes for the Locks so most have them for "just in case." Getting a Door without the Cutts is lot more expensive. Industrial Scaling simply.
- 2 switches outside: one is for light in the houses hallway, NOT the inside. So when you leave the flat you don't have to walk in the dark :D
the other one is the bell for this specific flat. On the entrance of the house you will find a a bell system just like in america (sometimes, but not always, connected to an intercom - that's the phone thingy the guy showed), but if someone is already inside (because the houses front door was open, or because they live in the same building) they can ring the bell standing in front of the flat. Usually the "outside bell" and the "inside bell" will sound differently, so the person living there will know where the visitor is right now
- switches in the hallway (inside): it's common to have switches for the halway light close to all rooms (for the same reason as above: being able to leave the room and immediately reach a lightswitch). but some of those doors are close enough together that I wouldn't expect each of them having their own switch. If it can be easily reached, usually they'd just share one. The only room that - for some reason - often has a lightswitch on the outside instead of in the room itself will be the bathroom / toilet (edit: storage room as well - if it has light at all)
- that is a pretty big hallway indeed, I wouldn't say that's common. I am more familiar with much longer hallways that are relatively narrow, but of course there is a huge variety
- sometimes doors in a flat have some glass (or other see-through) elements, they give the space a brighter vibe, but I personally prefer the fully wooden ones, they are much better at soundproofing. (just realized they are mentioned later in the video). It is absolutely normal to have keyholes for every single room. Usually the key will just be left in the hole on the inside of that room. The germans are big on privacy :D
Only room that usually won't have a key will be the living room, but since most doors are standardized and can just be bought of the shelf, they will have the keyhole as well (remember: it's not predefined, which room is gonna be a living room and which one a bedroom, and that might change when new people rent the space. So they might want the key anyway)
- not leaving the lamp-thingy: it's pretty normal for germans to move comparatively often. But they still want the places to feel like their own. So they will buy the lamp they like and take that with them. If it won't fit their new flat (or house) they can well talk to the people who will rent their old flat after them and ask, if they want to buy the lamp (and what ever else they want to leave behind) from them, so they don't have to get rid of it, and the new people don't have to get new stuff (if they don't bring their own). But generally speaking you should not expect to get any furniture but the toilet, bathroom sink and shower or bathtub (depending on the flat), when moving to a new flat, if not otherwise specified.
- the vent: because of how many flats or structured, there often is not enough ventilation in bathrooms (some have no windows at all). In order to prevent mold because of damp walls n stuff (that happens when you have an unventilated bathroom^^) those will have a vent to "suck" the damp air our of the room. Some kitchens will have that too (for cooking steams)
It's also beneficial for the smell
- not all flats have bathroom and toilet fully separated, but it's absolutely normal.
- bathtub "drain" thing: it is in fact connected to the drain. The normal drain is on the bottom of the tub (duh :D), the one up there is an "over flow protection". sinks will usually have that too. Is that not a thing in america? If there is too much water in the tub/sink instead of overflowing and ruining the room it will just go in their and run down the drain, even if the drain in the bottom is plugged (so you can fill the thing). But yeah, in there is the plug you would then use to plug the lower drain (was that understandable? my brain doesn't language rn xD)
- vanity storage: just like any other furniture. It's individuals choice :shrug:
- "you've got to haul your kitchen...." yes. for that exact reason (and because they so often are specifically tailored for the kitchen space) they often DO stay in the flat, but you will have to pay for it. Flats are hard to come by, and if the previous renters want to sell theirs you'll basically have to take it (and pay for it) if you want it or not. At the same time, if they don't leave one: not much you can do about that but buy our own. But that usually only happens when people bought a fancy oven or a REALLY fancy fridge. In flats usually that stuff stays behind
(not the dishwashers, washing machines though, those usually get taken. Idk man, just be like that^^)
- since you compared it to taking the toilet: the toilet, shower and bathroom sink belong to the owner of the flat, they get placed there when the place is built/renovated. All the (other) furniture (usually) belongs to the tenants, so they can keep/sell it. Sometimes the owners will also own the kitchen, in that case you might either have to pay extra in the rent, or you give an extra deposit for it (because those things have a higher risk of being broken) or you buy it from the owner and then the cycle begins from there
- not all flats here have dishwashers, it really depends on the size of the space
- having fridges in "cabinets" so they fit it with the style of the rest of the kitchen is not a must, but pretty common
- the "pantry": well, it is just a "storage room". It's really up to you if you use it for a hoover and cleaning utensils or for food. As always with german spaces: the room is the thing you get, what you do with it is absolutely up to you. I have a friend who built a tiny recording studio in theirs (they are a voice actor). But yeah, most commonly it's used for storage
(and as for the lock: same as above.)
- "hanging stuff": those magnets are probably glued. as for shelves and the likes: you drill into the wall and use dowels and screws. Just keep in mind that for most walls you need to use concrete/stone drill bits instead of wood drill bits. especially in older buildings it's not too uncommon to have really stubborn walls (and ceilings), so I've had to use an actual hammer drill a couple of times.
- gamingroom switch above the outlet: not for the outlet, it's a lightswitch. Our outlets usually don't have switches, but it's common to have power strips with them. As the lightswitches for the hallway usually is next to the doors on the outside, once you enter a room you will usually have a light switch next to the door on the inside for the main light of the room.
The reason you often have outlets next to the lightswitches: in order to get the cables through the walls you need to have some "cable tunnels" (I don't know the terminology) and while light and electricity use different cables and can be placed independently from each other, it is way easier to have just one tunnel for both of them. So it makes sense to access them at the same place
I am so amused by your fascination with the doors xD
my flat is not big at all (370 sqft / 35m² roughly) I have 3 doors in the flat (tiniest hallway, bedroom/office to the right, tiny bathroom/toilet to the front, kitchen/living room to the left). Including the main door you can stand in that "hallway", turn any direction and see a door :D
- universal keys?: They might work with multiple doors an a flat (I can use the same key for my bedroom and my kitchen), I have a different one for the bathroom. It is normal that they can be used from either side of the door, but they are usually left on the inside or just taken out entirely and thrown in the key-drawer everybody seems to have xD
These are not nearly as "secure" as our house/flat keys though. My younger sibling locked themselves in when they were a kid and I could pretty easily pick the lock with stuff I had at hand. Its not to prevent theft or anything, it's just to keep people from walking in unanounced.
- there are wallhangers for bikes, no Idea why they don't use them.
- that basement is extremely typical. The wooden "prison"-like bars are to separate the compartments for the different tenants and somewhat a barrier for casual theft, but they won't stop anybody with serious criminal intent.
- the trash pick up mechanism is not common at all. Usually the tenants share the responsibility to take out the trash bins (they might have a calendar and everyone is responsible for a week or smth like that), in these cases they usually share the cleaning duties for the buildings hallway as well. or there might be a person paid by the owner of the building to do those things. The garbage collectors are employed by the city and the landlord might have a contract with them and give them an extra key for the front door (only the houses door, they won't be able to get into the flats) so they can get the bins themselves. Or, as in my case, they just ring all the bells every time they come, so somebody will let them in :'D
gee, this must be the longes yt comment I ever wrote. well, anyway.
cheers
Also the fridge doesn't have to be as huge as an american one, because the supermarkets are more accessible. So it's pretty common to shop in smaller amounts and more offen, also to avoid food waist.
In more rural areas it gets more common to shop in bigger amounts, because the smaller shops in villages are vanishing, but in cities you can reach supermarkets in 5-15 minutes by foot.
The numbers on the heater knob mean the following:
1: around 12 degrees C (53,6 F)
2: around 16 degrees C (60,8 F)
3: around 20 degrees C (68 F)
4: around 24 degrees C (75,2 F)
5: around 28 degrees C (82,4 F)
Each little line between the numbers stands for 1 degree C.
There might be other symbols on it for Nightmode or a setting a little above turning it off, so water inside pipes doesnt freeze in that room, which can be dangerous. Also you can replace these control knobs with (expensive) electronic versions that can be controlled wireless with an app, in a homesystem or your internet router if its the right one.
Exactly, but since those mechanical thermostats are not calibrated the actual temperature that you get can be a few degrees off either way, so a little experimentation is required to get to a comfortably setting. That's why they have this arbitrary scale instead of just putting the temperatures on the knob.
Actually something a lot of germans don't know and the way these regulators work is so fascinating (i've done greenery inside the offices of heimeier for a long time so ive seen the details and the science where perfection gets done or rather got done in the past)
@@TheRedNaxela Yes I didn't know this and I am german :D
Reality differs so much much from this theory that this scale is de facto meaningless. This starts with the fact that semi-modern heating boilers allow you to set a target temperature for the whole building, that alone contradicts the idea that those knobs allow you to pick a specific temperature based on the labelled numbers. Then there are external temperature sensors that modulate how hot the water flowing through the heating system is. I have also yet to see a house or apartment where the same position on those regulators would result in the same temperature in every room. Or any building you can actually heat above 24 °C.
The best you can hope for is that setting those regulators to one value results in the temperature staying about the same as the weather changes.
Carpet was a thing of the 70/80s in Germany. Even BATHROOMS had carpet.
Today the norm is either laminate or hardwood floor, as well as tiles.
I'm Gen X and I'll always have carpet in my living, working and bedroom.
Carpet is so disgusting. You can clean it all you want, you'll never get everything out. Also cleaning is way more complicated. I prefer just mopping the floor. With concentrated vinnegar and chlorine detergents.
Even bathrooms? Oh god..
@@voyance4elleI also know a house where the kitchen has a carpeted floor.
@@grievousminded7517 Exactly, you can NEVER get carpet clean after 2 weeks when it was new. Never.
How someone can even get the idea of "Hm...lets have carpet in the bathroom" is beyond any reason.
Bathroom: The _vent_ hides an extractor fan to _suck_ odors and steam out of the room.
The thingy above in the bathtub allows for air to assist the water drain. The chain is attached to a plug that closes the drain. This is an older system, newer system mostly have a turning knob to open and close the drain.
it's actually neither steam nor odor it's gases, when you poop the methan gas accumulates... if you don't have a window that you can open you NEED a vent, lots of farmer have died in their fertiliser silos because the methane gas is really really toxic for living beings
The extra hole in the bathtub also prevents the water from overflowing if left unattended with the main drain plugged.
@theKiwii Doesn't really help tho if you don't have it running kinda slow.
@@Tudas No, not true. That extra hole is designed to let through at least as much as the typical tap can deliver, which is 15-20l/min if it was designed and installed according to the German technical code for residential plumbing. And this is true since at least the late 1920s.
This house is from around the 1960s. Very typical for that era. But every German appartment is typically for the era it has been built in. So you cannot draw conclusions on all other appartments only on the ones from the same decade.
I'm not German, but it's the same in other countries. It's not just about money, you shape your home to your taste, from fixtures to furniture to your own clothing, and take it all with you because it's yours. That simple. If there's anything you don't need anymore, it's on you to get rid of it. Why would you leave your trash behind for someone else to clean up? Rude. Anyway, here it's usually stipulated in the contract to return the place to the owner just as you received it - nothing inside that doesn't belong to them - before it's rented to someone else who will decorate as they see fit.
just imagine, having a 10 years used carpet left from some dirty people... disgusting. Kitchen the same. On the one hand it could just not fit your style and even worse, imagine the previous tenant never cared about to clean it.
It's not Ebay that's popular here it's Ebay Kleinanzeigen, now only called Kleinanzeigen. It's totally different than Ebay 😅
it's the german equivalent to craigslist in the US
Ebay itself gets more popular again
Kleinanzeigen is nothing like Craigslist... there's very little chance you will get murdered buying something off Kleinanzeigen... it's missing the thrill
@@LoFiAxolotl Jesus Christ 😅
It’s very easy actually to find an apartment in Germany with a kitchen. Either you can buy it from the previous tenant, or the landlord installed it. But that makes the apartment usually more expensive
Bringing your own kitchen has the advantage that the design, quality and the technical equipment match your personal preferences.
Light switches: They are typically next to a door (depending on how many there are, e.g. very large house) and in the room they work in. So you enter the room and just have to slap your hand on the wall to make light ^^ but it is common that multiple switches can light one lamp so that you can light up the room regardless from where you're coming in. And the one outside the main door is for the light in the stairwell of the building. Sometimes you can have another light switch for the outside next to where ever the buzzer to open the house entrance is.
And bathrooms often have the lightswitch on the outside - something with electricity and moisture I think.
@@hypatian9093 Yeah, sometines you want to go to the bathroom and hit the switch first, only to hear an angry/shocked "Besetzt!" xD
@@hypatian9093 Switches and outlets in "wet rooms" (Feuchträume) are considerably more expensive, since they have to comply with additional regulations. So it's just cheaper to put the light switches on the outside.
Sometimes the switch outside of bathrooms or toilets have a red or amber LED in the center to indicate if the light in room is lit and the room is occupied.
And the switch above the outlet is just for the light. Switched outlets are very rare. I don't know if I saw one at all around here.
I can assure you that the barbed wire in the cellar is actually not typically German.
In most cases, the fence goes up to the ceiling. In basements where this is not the case, I've seen this before. Not typical, but also not unheard of.
This is an uncommonly tiny bathroom and the tub is a very dangerous apparatus if you want to take a shower.
@@JensFrank I've never seen fences in a basement in the first place. All the basements I've been to (in NRW) just had rooms made with regular brick walls and heavy steel doors.
@@theKiwii Most of the appartments I lived in in Cologne had these type of basements :) always in Altbauten (old buildings)
@@theKiwii most I've seen in NRW are propper walls too, but when I helped a friend move both his old and new place had these wooden ones
Haven't moved in a few years, but an appartement with 1 room plus kitchen and bath is NOT "three room". It is "one room" as kitchen and bath can practically only be used for cooking and bathing. Hence they do not get calculated as 'real' rooms. A "Zweiraumwohnung" for example has 2 rooms plus kitchen and bath.
Yup, I live in a Zweiraumwohnung, which basically means bedroom and living room.
Always surprises me that americans don't consider using a room for anything but sleeping. Or at least their way to advertise houses and apartments suggests that.
For Europeans, North-american door knobs are "strange"... ;)
And it's not possible to open the doors if you carry a bigger item with 2 hands. I don't know how many times I opend a door with the ellbow.
@@arnolsiyep, exactly
They are like that not only because you can carry things and open them, but because in case of fire you can open them with something and dont need to grab and turn a red hot metal knob
I hate door knobs with passion
Having a separate toilet is for sure not the norm, but it is not THAT atypical! I've lived in 15 different rentals during my life, and 4 of them had either one separate toilet or a toilet in the bathroom PLUS a seperate one for guests, the so called "Gäste WC).
I would not like the American way of renting a flat where everything is already furnished. What about my personal taste? Even if 80% of the existing stuff would meet my taste, I am sure I'd get nuts about the 20% annoying furnishings. When I rent a house or apartment or flat, I am "the boss of my castle". I wanna have control over each and every part and if it only was a simple lamp at the ceiling. And remember..... most Germans do not rent for short time periods but for long time. Some even for "lifelong", there are elderly people who have spent the last 40 or 50 years in the same apartment!
And imagine the stained corners in a used kitchen! Disgusting!
Well said!
Almost all apartments I have ever lived in had a seperate toilet, so for me it's rather the norm.
In France it's more the norm to have separate toilets. Not that toilets in the bathroom don't exist (my current appartment has toilets in the bathroom) but they are really rare.
The last toilette in the bathroom I had was some decades ago when I was a child. Since then always separate. And always two toilettes except in my last apartment.
Kitchen: Most kitchen furniture is modular. The standard depth is 60cm (a little more than 23 inches), the standard width is also 60 cm. But there are also 30, 45, 75, and 90 cm furniture available. Standard width: Almost all appliances are made to be built into a 60 cm "hole". With these measures you are able to fit the furniture into the available space. Then have your top custom made to cover it all.
Edit: corrected number after stevenvanhulle7242's comment from 19 to 23. 60 cm are not quite 24 inches (= 60.96 cm).
Small correction: 60 cm is 24 inches
@@stevenvanhulle7242 Thanks. I have corrected my post.
The keys are door specific and usually used from inside unless you want to lock a storage room or kitchen from children or guest.
But they are also very generic, probably all apartments build in a certain decade have the same set.
@@steemlenn8797 i mean nobody actually cares, they are just internal locks, the outside door has usually a very secure lock and its changed every time there is a new renter in most places, and its generally allowed for people to change them themselves.
But yes, they are very generic and there are definitely many dublicates, also they are super easy to pick.
@@steemlenn8797 in our house all doors within each apartment have non-compatible keys, but every apartment has the same set of 5 Keys. So, if your child manages to lock themselves in your kitchen, you can ask your neighbor for the Kitchen key and open it with his.
@@steemlenn8797 You can open these doors with a piece of wire. It's just to keep the kids out of a room or to signal that the bathroom is occupied.
@@steemlenn8797 I've lost by basement key at some point and just used a piece of wire to open it. They aren't pick proof at all. It's more about the slight hindrance.
The light fixture thing is more like a legal issue than a cultural one.
Normally the landord owns the apartment but not one single thing of the interieur, so everyone rents the flat in the same condition.
So the rent is only based on the price per m². That makes different rent-contracts more compareable and the landlord does not have any liabilities if some interieur is not in proper condition.
Also the renter has the right to see every part of the flat. So the kitchen can be included in the contract but the renter can claim to dismount it to see the walls behind it.
Thats necessary because some appartment buildings are 100+ years old, some are from the sowiet era of the GDR and some are built new.
These buildings are made differently (brick-build, pre manufactured concrete elements or steel reinforced concrete) and different types of insulation.
Since air conditioning is not a big thing, mould can be a problem. So you might want to see the external walls of your appartement, before you sign a contract.
Everybody has their own stile, not only in lamps. They want industrial but economic style, the next one wants expensive style, and the 80 y old lady likes cozy " Schwarzwälder -wooden-style" , do everybody choses what they like and can afford.
very true :)I have a very expencive taste in lamps and it took me years to get all the lamps and in the end built many myself :D
I bought a house and removed most of the lamps which were not my style. I still have lamps from my mother's house which I wouldn't use myself (need to sell them eventually). I took several lamps from my old apartment which I really like. Some are also nice but I just don't need them anymore 🙂.
And when you already bought a lamp to your liking, you obviously want to keep it. You invested money into it. Which reminds me that I'm living here for close to a decade anow and still haven't bought a fixture for my hallway. But then, I also still have the original 60W bulb in there. I simply never need light there.
Glad we meanwhile often just see spots ... so no need to buy a lamp, only like that one special you also need for decoration
@@sandraankenbrand But what if someone doesn't like spots ? Or if the spots are not well positioned ? Maybe the next tenant wants do place the furniture in a different way and the spots don't fit for that.
My appartment had a light outlet at the ceiling which I needed to lay a meter to where I needed it. The remaining of the living room had none at all.
9:09 This dangling lightbulb thing is called a "Malerfassung" (painter's socket/fixture) or "Baustellenfassung" (construction site socket/fixture). We use it instead of a normal light fixture when renovating or painting the ceilings to have light without damaging or dirtying our lamps. They are usually left in apartments by the previous tenants.
I know it as a Russian chandelier 😁
Ryan, when you keep in mind that most Germans (even families) are living in rentals instead of houses you will understand why "an apartment" doesn't necessarily mean "a one room thing". And yes, of course we have hallways. It is the place to hang up the guests coats and jackets, the place to have a "Schuhschrank" ( a little cabinet to store your shoes in, because you know that Germans do not wear the shoes at home which they wear outside. We have house-shoes, means simple slippers only worn inside or maybe Birkenstocks.)
And a family with two or three kids living in a rental apartment for sure needs a lot of space, so yes, there are apartmens even bigger than the one shown here.
I have met exactly one family in almost 40 years where I had to take off my shoes. I really think this is just a myth.
@@grievousminded7517 I am a German and I have never in my life met any German who wears shoes inside their home. Some people tell guests they're fine if they leave their shoes on but apart from that ...
Maybe it depends on the area you live in but it's definitly not a myth at all
@@grievousminded7517 youve not been to many places then..
90% of people i meet take of their shoes in the appartment
@@grievousminded7517 Every one I know has the no-street-shoes-in-the-house policy.
@@grievousminded7517Same with me. I‘m over 60 now and live in a large City in northwest Germany. No one I know takes their shoes of.
1:29 that's most likely the light in the stairwell.
... and the doorbell.
@@McGhinch of course, but he recognised that one.
Beds: We usually have two beds pushed together or constructed into a single frame. The benefit is that you have your individual sleeping space. You may select your mattress to your individual taste and needs. Also separate feather beds keeps you from fighting for the cover for the night. There are foam material wedges available to soften the gap between the two mattresses.
And separate feather beds allows you to have two smaller ones that you can wash at home. My first duvet was huge and I had to paid laundry service for it.
I once rented a short-term apartment in Hannover with one large duvet and a 10-centimeter gap between the mattresses. I was the first renter and I gave the owner friendly feedback about this and a few other things like barely warm water.
We for sure don't usually have 2 beds pushed together wtf.
That's for sure a rare case.
@@Tudas Maybe you should spend the night in some smaller family operated hotels in Germany...
In private homes, I agree, there is usually a single bedframe with two matresses.
In Austria you have to buy everything too (lights, vanity, kitchen, etc). I think people just don't move as often and like to decorate to their individual taste.
Apartments or rooms that are meant to be temporary may very well come with furniture.
Also "Kippfenster", detachable shower heads and "Vorzimmer" (the room after you enter that leads to several others) are common, as well as the individual heating.
someone who just moved from Berlin to Vienna and back to Berlin... SOOOOOOOOOO many appartments these days are furnished for some reason.... it's super annoying to me because i had to sell furniture twice which is a huge hassle...
My current apartment in Vienna had a (small) kitchen already in. But yes, it's not very common. as per usual: depends ;)
@LoFiAxolotl But Berlin is a rare exception here, probably because of many young people moving there and moving out after a few years anyway.
One particular requirement in Austria: every room of the rental (or for-sale) has to have at least one light actually installed, probably so that you can see something even before installing your own lights.
So when we bought an apartment in 2018, each room had a single old-style bulb (glowing filament, not energy-saver) installed. This is funny, because those cannot be sold anymore since (depending on power) 2009-2012. So apparently the construction company has a large stash of old, cheap bulbs still around to put in newly built apartments.
22:50 well, there is this thing called a drill. It comes with a cable to plug into an outlet and then you can spend all your free saturday trying to find the point, where there are no steel beams in the ceiling (I had a VERY bad experience with a lamp rail...).
No seriously, wall are very stable and you just drill holes. Most landlords ask to plaster the holes when moving out.
There are also nails which can be hammered in walls. At least if they are not pure concrete.
I have the feeling my walls are 5 cm dust over a solid block of steel. The first bit is soft enough to push nails in with your finger, but after that you don't just need a drill, you need a proper Schlagbohrmaschine.
@@HappyBeezerStudios Yeah, luckily I didn't have to contend with that yet. My mom has plastered walls and I am always careful not to bump into them with something and leave a deep scratch. It's also not easy to properly apply that stuff and cheap options get worse if you don't know what you're doing.
Probably a century ago that chute into the basement was used for coal delivery. There'd either be the central heating unit or the tenants would take the coal to their apartment ovens. Nowadays we heat with gas and apartments without central heating are quite the exception.
Switches next to the door are for door bell and for hallway light
Panel on the wall above the shoe rack is the fuse/breaker box
Vent in the bathroom is an air exhaust - that bathroom doesn't have a window so the vent is there to get rid of moisture in the air
Thing in the bathtub is indeed a holder for the drain plug, but there is also an overflow drain hole behind it so you don't flood your bathroom if you turn on the water and forget about it
The light switch on the outside is used to turn all the lights in the stairwell for some time. It is pretty hard for me to explain this, so I will make an example:
> House, 3 floors + basement
> each floor has about 3 apartments with the same layout as in the video
> on the outside, there is a door that cannot be opened from the outside. Near the door are buttons with names and the apartment nunber. Theese are the doorbells for every apartment
> The phone is used to talk to people near the outside door, and the button with the lock unlocks the door
> to get to your apartment, you have to use the stairs. Every apartment door has a switch that drops back after you press it. It is the light switch, and it activates every single light in the stairwell (exept for the basement) for about a minute, then the lights turn back off
Hope that helped :D
Also in Germany you will find Apartments that will come with a build in kitchen. I moved about 10 times during my adult life and I never had to buy a kitchen. The downside is that the already existing kitchens are pretty crappy most of the times. My current one is from sometime in the 80s but at least it came with a dishwasher. There ist a lock on the pantry because all the doors come with a lock. It's the industry standard.
It depends, new ones are usually without and the first owner puts it in and leaves it as its usually unfit at the new place. If you ask your vermieter you can totally replace it 99% of the time.
my first apartment in east Berlin had an oven&stove combo from 1929... oven went up to 500°C which was great for making pizza... stove took about 3 weeks to boil water though
I also moved a couple of times. The way I have experienced it, if it's a *new* apartment it usually doesn't have a kitchen installed, but when someone was living there before he will have had a kitchen installed that he can't use in his new place, so you can get it from the previous renter for a few thousand Euros, a few hundred Euros, or even for free so that he doesn't have to pay for it to be removed, depending on how old it is. But it never had any link to the landlord, it became my personal property do do with as I pleased.
Having a small storage furniture under the sink is quite common in Germany, it’s just not left in the apartment, but taken with you like the other furniture. So if they don’t have one, that’s their choice.
Yeah, it depend,s but is surely not uncommon. In my current place I din't have a cupboard under it, but a shelf at the top, my old place hat a little Schränkchen. My mother didn't had one either, but about 60% of my friends and colleagues have them.
28:49 in Germany we don't say: turn off the lights please. We say: Licht AUS!!!! And I think that's beautiful
About the inside doors having key holes: The standard german locks always have the normal latch AND a dead bolt. So every standard door comes with a cutout for handle and key hole. And unless you have plates that cover the holes, it's easier to just roll with it. Also, at times it's really practical to lock one of the rooms, especially if you want to keep people out of them (like locking your bedroom when you have a party or family function).
Or when you have a cat that really doesn't like the plumber working on your kitchen drain. The biesties are smart and will learn to open doors.
I´m a electrician in Germany. The Switch (10:55) ist outside, because it´s not allowed to install the switch near the Bathtub. It´s not the best place, but the safest. :)
Germany dont have water safe swithes? How about switches out side the house? Ip67?
@@gtvgranberg Not indoor.
@@gtvgranberg It's possible today to install switches inside bathrooms, but most apartment buildings are older and already have the wiring on the outside. And usually nobody changes the whole wiring because people are used to light switches being on the outside of bathrooms.
Even for new houses it's probably still cheaper to install the switch on the outside because you don't have to follow so many safety regulations. And why spend more money when absolutely nobody is going to appreciate it.
@@gtvgranberg Oh yes we have IP67 .. but only for outside or near the sink. We have Zones near the Shower/Bathtub.. 60cm (23,5 inch) around the bathtube it´s forbidden to install a 230V switch or other thinks.
USA: 110 Volts, Germany: 230 Volts. I would not want lightswitches inside my bath.
Not having a dishwasher is extremely rare. I wouldn’t call it a luxury. Even all the student apartments I’ve been to had one.
Then you were lucky. Even in many bigger WGs there are no dishwashers (mostly because the kitchen is an assembly project by people with a very limited amount of money). And most student apartments (except of those where mum and dad payed for (mostly)) didn't have space for a dishwasher as the kitchens are often horribly small. Let's say it's common at a certain stage in life that you have a dishwasher. When you're a student in your 20s though, not so much. Also single room apartments mostly don't come with a dishwasher (again not enough space available).
It's definitely not extremely rare. I wouldn't even say that it's rare in Germany, when you're younger it's definitely common.
EU citizen here, lived in multi EU countries. I have not had a had a dishwasher for >30 years. In many apartments there is no kitchen space for a dishwasher.
The two switches on the outside of the apartment are doorbell and outer hallway switch. When you leave the apartment you can switch on the lights in the hallway outside of the apartment so you don't have to walk to the front door completely in the dark. Those hallway lights are on a timer so they switch off after a short while and don't stay on all the time.
4:03 That's the fuse box. Every apartment has a separate fuse box and a separate water mains. The fuse box isn't neccessarily in the apartment itself, often it's somewhere in the cellar near the power measuring tool (the one that measures how much you have to pay to the power company), I once had an apartment where it was in the outer hallway. I once had a discussion with some people from the US where I learned (very much to my surprise) that in the US it's quite normal that apartments don't have a separate water mains, so if you have to work on something connected to the water system (like a bathroom faucet or something like that) you have to switch off water for the entire apartment building.
The light in front of the door isn't for one family, it's for the hole housekorridor
Hi, Ryan! The mini-door on the wall in the "Flur" (Entrance area) is the fuse box!
The heating system with the thermostat uses the numbers to regulate the room temperature. It starts with a frost symbol (6 degrees Celsius), then 1 (= ?), then night mode (14 degrees Celsius) (if you want), and any higher number means warmer. At 3 you have 20 degrees. A number higher means 4 degrees Celsius more.
Carpets across the entire room are a bit out of fashion in Germany. Most of the time you have laminate and/or tiles. It`s better to clean. People only sometimes put smaller rugs under the living room table or wherever for decoration. At the entrance area you find mostly small carpets.
Bathroom: Ventilation shaft/chimney. (If there is no window in the bathroom). Sometimes there are electrical triggers and sometimes just the slots.
The kitchen: Well, it can be comfortable to move into an appartement with an existing kitchen. But do you really always want a used (maybe dirty) kitchen that you don`t even like? You can be lucky, but you also maybe can be unlucky.
Ich kann es geradezu hören: "da8s Bild hängt schief" 😂😂😂😂
9:30 Imho one reason for renting out without light fixtures may be that most people rent on a long-term basis, and if you live for years in an apartment, you want it to be in your own style. Sometimes people don't remove their fixtures if moving out, but more often the next tenant will want to change it after a few weeks. Therefore professional landlords / housing companies will not provide fixtures, because sooner or later they will only clutter some storage room.
10:03 Carpeted floors did totally come out of fashion since the 1970s. Sometimes there will a single rug under the coffee table or at the eating place or a runner in the hallway, but mostly you'll see wooden floors in moderner or renovated apartments, sometimes mixed with tiled floors e.g. for the kitchen area, the bath or the hallway (or in floor-heated parts).
11:13 The bathroom is rather small, but that is not unusual in rental apartments. Washing machines are put where the piping for them exists - which is mostly either the bath or the kitchen. Many apartments have a toilet separately from the bathroom (for Germans it is only a bathroom, if it has a tube or at least a shower in it), but most toilets (except in some older buildings, where the toilet was placed on the end of a long corridor-like room, because they did not trust yet the syphon system to block odor nuisance) are not big enough to hold also a washing machine.
13:02 That is part of the drain, it holds the plug while not used, but is also connected to the drain in the bottom, so if somebody lets the water running, it will drain through this security drain. The so-called vanity storage (in German called "Unterschrank" = lower cabinet) comes usually not with the apartment, but is brought by the tenant, if they want one.
In many apartments the light switches are outside of the "wet" rooms (for somewhat outdated security reasons), and most bathrooms come with a key, sometimes also with a latch, to be closed from the inside for privacy reasons. (So they could even be used as panic rooms, if you are very quiet while panicking. 😁)
15:58 Since many tenants want to have their own kitchen style, landlords often only provide only a removable kitchenette (in a cupboard about a meter or a meter and a half wide) for a transition period, if any. Such a kitchenette could then be easily stored in the basement, while not in use. Kitchen studios providing customized kitchens are big in Germany, while furniture retailers often provide cheaper standard solutions (kitchen space is prepared for standard measures - dishwashers come mostly with either 45cm or 60cm width, frigerators, stoves and baking ovens usually with 60 cm width; depth is usually also 60cm. All measures are a multiple of 15cm).
Sometimes tenants leave their kitchen behind, if you pay a "Abschlag" (more or less symbolic payment) for it.
Most fridges are "camouflaged" with the same fronts as other cupboards.
The light switch outside is for the hallway.
We do NOT have the common hallway and staircase on light all the time. Instead you press that switch and then it runs on a timer and will shine for a time until it goes out again automatically.
The vent in the bathroom is to get the moisture from bathing out and prevent mold.
And with the thick, solid walls here we need heating in the rooms separately.
Also more convenient in my opinion, that was I have no heating on in my bedroom, cause I prefer a cool one, but have a REALLY warm bathroom for when I'm butt naked!
There are numerous advantages to have two mattresses.
Once, your own side doesn't shake as much if your partner shifts around in their sleep.
You can also have VERY different mattresses. My father is heavily overweight so he needs a VERY hard mattress, while my mother has problems with her back and needs a specific one.
So each person can get what they need for themselves. You also CAN have the possibility to lift part of the mattress and that too individually.
It's also convenient that everyone has their own blanket and not one person manages to roll themselves so much in the blanket that there's none left for your partner.
In Germany most people don’t need such a huge fridge because we like to cook from scratch. And many cooking items don’t need a fridge, like flour, rice, pasta, etc. And you are right, we probably go shopping more often. Many people go grocery shopping by bike or walk there, so you can’t carry so much stuff.
In germany, the next supermarket is around the corner, walkable distance. In america it´s kilometers away, only reachable by car. That´s why going shopping is a much bigger deal and storage must last longer in Amiland.
@@user-jd2gi7dy5d Rural Germany is very American in that regard, there are many parts of rural Germany where supermarkets sadly aren't just around the corner. Maybe not as far away as in many American cities, but still too far to walk or bike
Also, it is a question of space. Many kitchens are not very big and a big fridge would fill the whole room. Some people have a second fridge somewhere else, like in the basement.
@@leDespicable But in those places it's also more common to have a full house and a car. So no problem to do the weekly or fortnightly shopping trip followed by storing things in a pantry and the big extra freezer.
@@HappyBeezerStudios True, it only becomes a problem when you get old and can’t drive anymore
"Why would you take your ceiling lamp with you? It's not that expensive"?! 😅Is it really that confusing? I don't know what it's like in America, but don't tell me that you don't have people who build and sell ceiling lights in different designs. And people with different interior styles. Why should I give my lamp to the person who rents my apartment after me? I might have chosen it to match my furniture with a lot of thought and time in the furniture store...and possibly spent a lot of money on it. As far as I know, some designer lights are available for around 3 to 5 thousand euros. and even if I have one from Ikea, it still costs 60 euros. I really don't understand why this is such a big surprise. Do Americans give away their furniture when they move out?
@ryan the difference between the kitchen and the toilet and bathtub is that the toilet and bathtub are installed on or into the wall the kitchen stuff is normally just standing there and not that hard attached to the walls so it is possible to relatively easy move a kitchen.
My parents for example brought the old kitchen with them wenn we build the house we are living in so we have theoretically two kitchen furniture things the old and the new one witch was bought as the kitchen room in the house was ready for it.
It's nice it means sometimes if you have many guests over we can use a second oven.
And regarding your carpet question in our house all rooms on the first and second floor have carpet only the bathroom not. And on the ground level we also have just moveable rugs a few.
Germans and Austrians and Swiss love compartmented appartements. That is pretty normal. You can find some American style appartments (newer ones) from time to time, but generall speaking we like to be able to close the doors of all the rooms and a stranger entering our appartements not seeing at first glance what we own. Don't have American doors keys for every room?
in the US it's more common to have doors that use the door knob as a lock
@@LoFiAxolotl In the U.S.there often is a kind of lever or button on the knob to lock it from the inside.
@@aphextwin5712 did not know youtube comments had an echo
@@LoFiAxolotl Bad phrasing on my part, I just wanted to make clear that “using the door knob to lock the door” meant that there is a button or lever on the knob, not that you for example rotate the door knob in the opposite direction (compared to when you turn the knob when opening the door).
This was not a typical apartement. It was more of a typical "Wohngemeinschaft" apartement. Which, I checked, does not have an adequate translation into English. It seems to be an older apartement which housed students at some point, which occupied the same shared flat, but had their own rooms. That is why the layout is a bit weird and the indvidial rooms are small.
Imagine a frat house, but it is a flat and there is no weird frat (something that exists only in the US). Some people are still in university, some are working for a TV station some are doing something that no one understands, but they share the costs of living in a big city, by renting a flat together.
PS. The kitchen thing, you would understand, if you cooked more yourself. I don't leave behind my 5k € stove in hope to get a 300€ stove in the new appartement.
carpet floors are a thing in germany too, but i feel they are getting out of fashion, newer apartments tend to not have them and rather give the tennants the choice to put a rag or carpet ontop of their wooden floor.
Pretty much the best solution. You don't have to deal with the muck from the previous tenant, and can decide what you want yourself. I've put carpet in my place, because every room is tiled and that gets cold on the feet, but at my mother's place we even took the carpet out to enjoy the wood flor.
25:04 That proud smile on Ryan's face when he FINALLY got it in the right order... 🤣
Why do we take our lamps with us? Because so we can change them as we see fit, if we redecorate. We can adjust to the style of the room ´- and if we move we also take the furniture with us - the light fixture is just another part of that.
Carpets - well, carpets are a hassle to clean, collect dust and dirt and - DUST MITES. Those buggers are getting on the nerves of a lot of allergic people (like me) - and hence I do only have floors which I can wipe easily. Also - since I have a cat I am very happy that his hairballs go on floor that can be wiped ... you would not want that in the fabric of the carpet.
If I buy a lamp, I buy one that I like. And if I move, I don't suddenly stop liking my lamp. So I keep it and put it in my new place.
@@HappyBeezerStudios I'd probably leave my lamps in the old apartment and use the opportunity to get new ones in the new apartment. But I don't buy expensive designer pieces, I just like trying out new types of light fixtures once in a while.
I like how they have blackout curtains everywhere, EXCEPT the bedroom 😂
😮 😂😂😂😂😂😂 📸📸📸📸
You don't need to block out the sun at night duh!
Also, they chose the room with the semi see-through door for their bedroom.
@@pieceofbread5686 That is actually quite common. My guess is that this is meant for you to see if someone is there getting clothes on/off (but not see details) so you don't go in at that time.
@@pieceofbread5686 yeah I wouldn't like that either, but there are more things to consider. The living room looks like the biggest room and the mancave is the smallest, so that leaves this one for bedroom.
It makes so much fun to see Ryan how fascinated he is about regular german stuff 👍🏻
But Ryan: dont think about the kitchen so much, mostly you buy the kitchen from the former resident
What annoys me though that Ryan, just as most US-Americans seem to think US-standards are the world default and everything else is weird. Different does not equal weird; otherwise, you wouldn't need the word different. I find a lot of Anglo-Saxon standards illogical, not to say weird.
The next stores here are Lidl (200 meters), Aldi (500 meters) and Rewe (600 meters). We call the Lidl our extended fridge.^^
Great reaction, as always!
About the numbers on the heater setting knob (8:15): These are simple mechanical thermostats, which means they are not calibrated to exact temperatures. Setting "3" is supposed to be targeting around 20°C, but depending on the situation it may get more or less than that (17°C or 23°). With a little experimentation it is easy to find a comfortable setting (typically in the 2-4 range). It is supposed to give roughly 4°C difference per division, so at "1" it is meant to roughly target 12°C, at "5" it should roughly target 28°C, but again, it is not calibrated. That's why there are no temperature labels on the thermostat and instead it is an arbitrary scale of numbers. The "moon" indicates a typical setting for a bedroom or for night time.
It's a bit like with toasters. Those aren't minutes, but just a relative scale. You need to figure out your toaster yourself.
the light is of course for the staircase xD its not on automaticly its a waste of energy
I have 2 motion detectors for the light in the hallway and stairwell. Otherwise I would have had to install 8 light switches.
the thing with build in kitchen in germany is that they are paid via rent. it's like leasing but when you live there for a few years it would have been a lot cheaper to have bought your own kitchen... also if something brakes you have to pay, if you want to change something you have to have permission and if the kitchen can/needs to/will be replaced it depends on what kind of a landlord you have if they buy a new one or if they leave you with the decision to live with the old one or buy a new one yourself...
The switches next to the doors in the hallway are all for the hallway lighting, so no matter which room you enter the hallway from, you can turn on the lights in the hallway. The light switch outside the apartment above the bell button is not for the apartment, but for the hallway lighting outside the apartment, so that you can turn on the hallway light/light in the hallway in front of the apartment when you leave it. As far as the kitchen is concerned, no one wants to have a shabby kitchen that has already been used by countless previous tenants and, in most cases, does not suit their own taste at all.
It is the light for the staircase 😉
the kitchen thing is mostly, because everybody has a different taste and different needs. I am in several Facebook groups on American real estate and some of the kitchen you see there, I would NOT want even if you gave me money! I have also lived in a number of American houses and apartments, and, yes, while being a foreign student there for a year each it was really useful to have a kitchen, but they were all so ugly, often with chipped corners and broken hinges etc. If I were to live in my own lice apartment, I would definitely want o have a kitchen customized for me, functional, and to my taste!
This square opening at the top left of the rear wall in the bathroom with the slats is probably a ventilation system. Windowless bathrooms often have this to prevent the walls from getting moldy. So the ventilation usually comes on when you've showered, or you have a manual switch here too (I imagine that's why there's a double switch in front of the bathroom door in the video here. One for the light, one for the ventilation (because you don't always have to switch it on if you just want to comb your hair or apply make-up). Many bathrooms also simply have a window, so you don't necessarily need an additional ventilation system.
Oh, the large hallway isn't that big in every apartment, but it's nice to have somewhere to store jackets and shoes and not be directly in a living room. It also often makes it cleaner, as you or visitors don't have to stand in the kitchen or bedroom with wet shoes. And if you use the apartment as a shared flat, for example, it's also great if all the doors open from the hallway and there are no through rooms. This means you can rent the apartment as a family, but also as fellow students.
Answering your questions about the apartment:
- the switches > you have a bell outside for visitors, then one In frontyour apartment door for neighbors or janitor. The second switch is the light in the hallway.
- heater > it's an intelligent system measuring the warmthin the rooms, as higher the number as higher your room temperature. Every room has his own radiator.
- carpets > it rare typically they use "Laminat"
- Bathroom > the upper hole in the tub is in case you forget to turn off the water so it can't leak over.
- Doors > every door is individually to lock and the keys are unique for every lock.
- Basement > every apartment has his storage space beside your neighbors.
When you want to ask something feel free to ask 😊
Greetings from Germany 🇩🇪
The "bring your own kitchen" thing in germany must be a huge pain in the ass. Not even we are doing that in Switzerland.
I think it's because Germans are more stingy :D
Building a kitchen to your standarts and taste can be fun as well. And way more comfortable in the long run.
Yeah, i just imagine during my student and young professional years i was changing flats all the time, that would have been terrible in germany
what does a carpet under the living room table have to do with her liking to eat there? For me that would even be a reason not to put one there
Ofcourse i take my kitchen with me when something costs 30.000€ i dont leave it behinde or do you guys leave your Cars for the next Person?
The form, size or even existence of an entry hallway is completely up to the architecture of the individual building. I’d say it makes sense the more different rooms and people there are. Going through the living room into your bedroom might be more common in apartments meant for only one person. Some buildings might also only be converted to be split into apartments, if they are old.
With three rather small rooms, a large kitchen, a separate toilet, and a large entry room, that looks to me like it was designed either for a family with multiple children, or a typical WG
In most cases the buttons light the room it is in. The reason there is one next to each door, is because you might have to light the room after going through the door. The button of the outside lights the hallway outside the apartment, in case there is no motion detection or it is not working, for example, it does not light up something in the apartment.
This apartment is a typical example of an average German apartment with a crappy room layout and a shabby basement.
You can find a better apartment with less square meters that looks bigger and more spacious.
This is by far not a crappy apartment, the basement is average I would say (the barbed wire is off-putting).
I don't know if you had luck in your search or you're just in a region with a high rate of quality apartments but (except for the windowless baths, which I hate) this is an averagely well maintained apartment and the basement is ... well just old but not unusual for a house of this age. If the walls are dry there is no real problem with it. To find an apartment you want to live in at all (depending on where you live, but well more true today) is often a challenge in itself, next to affording it when you would want to live in it. Monthly rates are hell of a problem in Germany especially in the south and there even in rural areas.
One thing you have hard times accusing Germany for is having a sufficient supply of average quality AND affordable living space.
I might only have two rooms, and my kitchen is connected to the living room, but I have a proper basement with proper door and a hallway that truly deserves the name. It's a short corridor. With doors leading to the room.
But it's intresting to imagine what the designers had in mind with the building. A large entrance room, a pantry room, separate toilet despite the other bathroom being big enough if they had a shower instead of a tub. And those extremely tiny rooms (like the computer room) but a rather large kitchen.
Probably for a typical 1960s family with multiple children. For that it makes sense to split toilet and bathroom (so that one can take a leak or wash their hands while someone else is taking a shower) and small children's bedrooms.
Come on...the hallway is way too big. takes up square meters from other rooms. split bathroom?! never seen and somehow strange. You can hardly move in both rooms. no window in the bathroom: never! A mold paradise... the gaming/office room is too small and long. But everything is a matter of taste.
@@PurpleSoulstice I didn't say that it's without issues. It's just by far not a crappy apartment. And I agree windowless bathrooms are a no go.
It depends on how much they have to pay for it, but I have seen (and also lived in) worse and this appartement is average or slightly above.
From my experience the market is really deteriorated and supply is below average quality-wise for a monthly rates that are Abzocke.
It might depend on the region but in the south of Germany this it's far beyond funny if you are "only" middle-class.
-for that little door , behind this is the breaker-box for the apartment
-the vent in the bathroom is for air-circulation, you have this most time when there is no window in the room
-yes that is the plug for the drain, its also a an overflow so the water won´t rise past this point, if you forgot you had the water running for example )
-the switch do not control the outlet, its for the light in the room
-thous are older keys, you still find them but not on modern apartments ..unless you want them and buy them in a hardware store
Our apartments are usually slightly larger. My rented apartment has 63 square meters. And I live there alone. No, not alone. I'm my cat's lodger! 😅
last time I checked 63 m² was smaller than 75 m²
I currently live in a 43 m² place, and when I lived together with my mother we shared 56 m²
1:22
others may have given the answer already but that is a combination switch:
1. containing doorbell switch on the floor of the house, so neighbours don't have go all the way downstairs to ring ones doorbell
2. a light-switch for the hallway sometimes stairwell is connected to that circuit but in big houses, 10+ flats the stairwell will usually come with an independent light circuit, also those are equipped with a none adjustable timer to auto shut them of after some minutes.
@13:02: it's the overflow drain. It normally contains the holder for the plug, which is connected to it with a chain. The regular drain is of course on the bottom side of the tub.
The light switch by the doorbell is to light up the section of corridor outside that door, so that if the person inside looks through the peephole, to see whose ringing the bell, they can see you clearly, and it also prevents you standing in the dark while waiting for the door to be opened.
Heads up, long comment, I'm writing this as I'm watching & answering some of the questions asked or assumptions made :D
1.) The light switch outside of appartment doors are usually for the "big" lights in the staircase! They're usually on every level so people can easily switch on the main lights when entering the staircase. They don't control any lights inside of the appartment. The other switch is the door bell.
2.) Most german appartments with more than 1 or 2 rooms have a hallway. These come in several sizes, they're either long and narrow or square, like the on in the video. Usually all rooms can only be entered via the hallway doors (exceptions are made).
3.) German appartments are usually seperated in this way: Küche (kitchen), Badezimmer (Bathroom), Wohnzimmer (Living room) and Schlafzimmer (Bedroom). The hallway is not considered as a seperate room as they're usually only meant for storage and not for living.
4.) The telephone for the door bell is not thaaat common. It's like 50/50, some buildings have them, some don't. Mainly buildings with many seperate appartments have them, smaller ones usually don't (from my personal experience).
5.) Yeah... german basements can look very creepy. Wooden doors, doors with bars, stone walls and dim lights. But the scariest things they harbour are spiders.,
6.) Some rooms in Germany have switches outside of the room. I don't really know why, though I've heard that it's mainly for darker rooms so you can switch the light on from the outside before entering.
7.) The radiator numbers correspond to how "hot" you wanna have it. 0 is cold/off and 5 is very hot. The moon symbol stands for "Nachtabsenkung", where the radiator will regulate the room temperature over night by itself to some degree.
8.) Carpet as the main floor is a 50/50. German appartments mainly come with wooden floors and you may put your own carpets over it as long as you don't damage the floor underneath. Also, a lot of germans just prefer rugs over carpet in the entire room.
9.) The vent in the bathroom ceiling is to remove the moisture and humidity. Since some bathrooms don't have a window mold could grow easily if you leave humidity and moisture in the room after showering for example. My grandparents also had an automated vent that would be used after someone used the shower or the toilet
10.) The black thing in the bathtub is the "Stöpsel". Basically a drain plug so water cannot escape if you fill the bathtub up to take or bath or if you need to store water. It's usually made from rubber and creates a tight seal!
11.) Seperated toilets are also a 50/50. I've been in appartments that seperate toilet from the bathtub/shower, some don't. It usually depends on how much space and layout is available to actually do that. It's nice though, so people can use the tub and toilet at the same time in seperate rooms. :) Sometimes the main bathroom is too small to fit a toilet and the water pipes. Early german appartments often had toilets in the staircase to be shared, which is luckily not the case anymore.
12.) Somes you can give over your kitchen to new tenants for a small fee they pay you, but since you most likely need your kitchen in the next appartment most germans just take it with them (or buy a new one if they already planned on it). It's pretty easy to buy and install a new kitchen though, most can be custom fitted or just fit to begin with. When we moved into our new appartment, we just got a full kitchen for 150€ on Kleinanzeigen. Still working without any problems 2+ years later :)
13.) Tiny fridges aren't that uncommon in german households. Most people I know grocery shop 1-2 times a week and get everything they need then. They appear tiny, but fit most stuff you'd need on a regular basis. Freezers too.
14.) Most german doors have locks, even the rooms you wouldn't expect one to have. We Germans love our privacy... even in the pantry! Sometimes you have nosey guests or try to avoid that your children open the pantry without permission.
15.) Their appartment is actually a pretty mid size. 3 rooms is standard for most couples - 1 living room, 1 bedroom, 1 work room. Well, you can seperate them how you want, but that's mainly the layout. We divided our 3 rooms into a living room, a computer room and the smallest one for the bedroom. The rooms appear large and 75m2 sounds alot, but it's average, depending on the city you're renting in.
16.) A lot of couples I know have a seperated bed, but mainly because it gives them enough space and their own mattress. My girlfriend and I even have two seperate beds that stand together, so we both have king sized beds, because we both move around alot.
Those Displate magnets are attached to the wall with sticky tape. Brown paper and magnet both have adhesive on the back. Usually if you want to hang a picture or hang a piece of furniture we use plastic dowel that expands when you start screwing screw which are mostly flathead or phillips screw
The switch doesn't control the outlet. Switch is for the lights, the thing connected to the outlet has it's own on/off switch
Usually newer indoor doors have notched keys. These are very old school ones. You can still buy them and they're the cheapest option.
They have enormous hallway, yet the choose to put bikes in the bedroom
The reason kitchens and light fixtures aren’t just part of the building, at least in many cases, is because they are considered highly personal in design or features. I don’t say I like it, at least with kitchens, but then again I don’t care that much about mine. There are definitively some rented kitchens now in newer buildings.
In the hallway, there are two switches. One is the doorbell the other one turns on the light in the hallway.
Locks on every door come pretty handy, when you have visitors and don’t want them in your office or bedroom. I also locked all important doors, when there had been construction workers in the building including my apartment to change the main pipes in all hallways. I was at work and my neighbor had to let them in and the apartment door stood open for half of the day, several days.
The thing with the light fixtures, not sure whether in Germany they do the same, I assume the seller fully renovated the flat before selling, including all the electricity, so it'd make sense for the electrician to just leave the cable there or put a placeholder bulb so the workers that come after them would have light. Usually the old switches, light fixtures, sockets get throws away in such renovation.
the outside the apartment switches of course are for the staircase lights. they usually switch a timer, which turns off the lights a few minutes later. that's why they are on every floor, on every door.
26:10 What? never heard about that. Maybe in a hotel where the room does not have a double bed and you are with someone else? I have a 140 mattress and everyone in my family has something above 120, too afaik.
the 90cm mattresses are usually for chidren or 'normal size' small beds(single person). It's the smallest you can get but most grown ups I know want more space.
Carpet was a thing, but I think like with the late 90s almost everyone started removing the carpet and replacing it with hardboard floors. And that's what's common now for the best of the last 30yrs.
I think, carpet is the same as with the closets and kitchens. It opens up more options for design and style choices.
Carpets are the most unhygienic floor coverings.
You take your light fixtures with you to the new home, because they match to the furnitures of the room, which you also take with you. (remember in germany you move everything with you).
As others may have already stated, light switch (next to the doorbell switch nearby entrance door of your appartment) is for the staircase lighting, hint : folks may want to leave/enter their homes before or after sunlight. One obviously needs to see the stairs since Elevators are pretty rare (or say 99.95% non-existant) in typical pre 1990s appartments.The one shown in vid might be rather from 60s-70s. The light switches then off automatically. (typical 30 secs to several minutes, depends on the building).
Since there is no one-style-fits-it-all kitchen in Germany, you take your kitchen with you when moving out (or sell it), because the value of kitchen ranges somewhere between 350 bux (used and 2 figures years old) and 20k handmade real wood kitchen. It would lead to endless negotiations between old and new tenants and homeowners if one had to leave the kitchen there. 🤣🤣
The separate pantry room as well as the "pick-up-trash-from-above"- thing are not common at all. Most of the time, the trash isle will be outside of the house and you'll have to put them out on the street for the collectors to empty them. However, in multi- family homes or big blocks, there'll be big containers in a separate area outside where everyone can put their trash and everyone pays a certain part of the fee (usually the more renters there are, the less each household has to pay).
Also, my first apartment didn't come with a basement nor an attic nor a hallway, so we had to store everything inside this little 50 square meter 2 room flat. Oh, and kitchen, dining area and living room were one single room.
In our current apartment, we still don't have a basement, but at least an attic and it's 3 room (living room, bedroom, bedroom for our daughter) and comes with 2 bathrooms (so we also have the toilet separate) and we have both a shower and a bathtub next to each other. Our apartment was completely unfurnished, so we brought some things with us or bought used stuff from local second hand shops or (eBay) Kleinanzeigen. Btw, I wonder that that's not a thing in the US. I mean, you can buy and advertise
literally everything there, from books over everyday utilities to cars, flats, jobs, furniture... Some things are even giveaways that you won't even have to pay for. You can chat with the sellers (mostly private persons) or buyers personally and even pick up the stuff personally. It's pretty much like the "search and sell" part of the newspaper, just online.
the lightswitch at 1:15 is for the corridor only. it turns off automatically after the amount of time a human being will need to get from the entrance to the building to the most far away apartment (usually on the top floor).
the problem with the kitchen is: if there is none, you have to buy one. so lets say you spend 5000€ in that kitchen, live there for 5 years and then move, you now have 3 options: sell the kitchen to the next tenant, if he doesnt wanna buy it, you can take it with in your next apart or sell it on ebay. and the last option is: gift them the kitchen, which might still be worth 3000 bucks.. would you gift the next tenant that 3000€ buck kitchen, if you need to buy a new one for the next apartment, if that doesnt have a kitchen? also, i think that the hallway is way to big in that particular apartment. its like its own room. the design of the overall apartment doesnt allow it, but i think, a hallway should be smaler and give the gained space to the other rooms or one of them. but overall, from my experience in the northen german region, this apartment is 80% typical. toilet and bathroom beeing seperate is unusual for this "smal" apartment, you usally only have a toilet seperate in big 4+ room apartments and then its mostly a guest toilet, but id say: 98 out of 100 apartments dont have a seperate toilet room in this apartment size. other thing is the hallway, for most apartment, its just a straight, narrow corridor, not a full sized room you could put a dining table in and sit on it with 6 people
28:40
That Basement layout predates WW1 meaning the house must have been built before 1914
and It most likely has had walls knocked down during that unfortunate time from 1939 - 45 to act as an improvised air-raid shelter
22:25 On some walls you can nail into the plaster and hang light things with nails. However, you often need a drill and masonry drill bit to drill a hole in the stone or concrete wall and then use screws or hooks with dowels to attach or hang very heavy things.
17:05 No, the shower or toilet IS an obligatory part of the rented property. An existing kitchen can be part the rental object, depending on the contract.
Most of this appartment is pretty typical and common. About the switches beside every door: you are supposed to turn off the light when leaving the room and have to light up when entering. Therefore all the switches besides every door in the hallway turn the lights in the hallway on or off.
The switches outside the entrance of the appartment, is most likely for the stairway and hallway outside the appartment. The switches next to the door, are most likely the switches for the hallway inside the appartment. So when you leave the kitchen, you can switch on the light and when you enter the bedroom, you switch it out.
Only sometimes, at a toilet there is the switch outside, often with a little light in the switch, so you could see from outside, if the light is on in the toilet, and therefore if it is occupied.
Basically every door in a German house has a look, just the kind of locks differs, and the doors at the front or back dorr, are much more heavy duty, than this typical handle at the pantry.
The switch in Phil's room, will switch the like, not the outlet. It is unusual to have a switch for an outlet, except the outlet is outside.
The key is a typical key for inside locks. They have a certain shape, and there are about 150 different shapes available. They are not very safe, so they are now only used inside a house or an appartment.
We have door to each room, just to heat only the parts you need. The hallway is usually cool, and you want to keep the heat in the rooms you need, or, in summer to keep the heat out of rooms.
It is also similar in austria. We have also a hallway with a lot of doors which is connect to every single room. Also it is really common that there are no carpets maybe rugs. In the bathrooms there are tiles on the floor. You saw the light switch outside of the room. In Austria there are the switch for the bathroom and for the toilet outside of the rooms and this is really typical. The other switches are for the hallway lights. So when you came out of one of this room you can switch the hallway lights on or off and this is the reason why there are so many light switch in the hallway room. The numbers on the radiators are to adjust the temperature of a single radiator. A smaller number is colder and a higher means hotter. In Austria and also Germany it is not common to have a central venting system to heat the rooms like in the U.S.. Newer flats has a floor heating system, where central hot water flows throw the pipes in the floor to heating the whole rooms.
The top button outside the entrance door is a light switch for the ouside hallway.
The layout of the Flur/internal hallway seems super inconvenient, but that's unfortunately the case for many German apartments. Me and my partner's current one has a hallway which makes it impossible to put any langer furniture in there, so we have to store all coats and jackets in the bedroom cupboard.
I think there's regulation on what needs to be present in an apartment and what is optional or needs to be bought by the tenant. Sometimes you can negotiate with the previous tenant to buy the kitchen or even other furniture, but especially if you don't have contact with the previous tenant and an administrator company does the business, you actually HAVE to remove everything when moving out. When I left my apartment in Hamburg, I actually had someone willing to move in and take my kitchen and some furniture. But the owner wanted to renovate the apartment to charge more rent so I even had to remove the flooring boards because the were not in the apartment originally.
Those locks inside the apartement are not considered "high security" so they're using pretty ol' standard low-sec keys (The metal keys with basicaly a weirdly shaped bar at the end). The entry-door into the apartement is usually a higher security door and therefor you, as a tennant are allowed to change the lock-cylinder to a different one. But you may want to change the lock to the original one when you leave, and always have to give the landlord all keys for the lock back.
Also the breaker box is in the hallway looking like the "What's that small "look-like-a-box-door" on the wall". Usually you have breakers for every room separated into lights and outlets, or if not for every room, then at least is the kitchen and the bathroom separated from the rest and secured by an Resident-ground-fault-protector.
The Light switches in every room are nothing more than light switches for the room they are in, even if they are directly above an outlet. For the bathroom the lightswitch for inside the room can be outside with a little signal-lamp to indicate whether it is on and therefor the bathroom is occupied. But it depends on the age of the installation.
A three room apartement is typically a two bedroom apartement, since bedrooms have neither closets nor bathrooms, meaning there is little to no difference between them and living rooms. And usually there is only one bathroom in the apartement, and maybe an additional guest toilet if you are really lucky. But most apartements really only have one bathroom
And they have a place with a large entrance room, many apartments have a proper hallway, as in a narrow corridor from which doors lead to the individual rooms. Basically just how you described american apartment hallways.
- The fact that they have their clothing closet in the hallway shows how weirdly the place is cut. And that they haven't put it on the giant empty wall in the living room shows clearly that they haven't embraced the german concept of "praktisch" yet.
- Light switches on the outside are only common for bathrooms. The two switches on the outside of the apartment were one for the doorbell, the other for the staircase/hallway light.
- Carpet is indeed common. Some prefer carpet, some a blank floor. Inmy place I've put carpet everywhere, because walking barefoot on stone isn't too nice. In my mother's place we did the opposite, because she had wood flooring, and that is just nice to walk on.
The vent in the bathroom exists for the same reason they exist in american places: getting the moisture and smells out and preventing mold. Their bathroom is on the inside of the building, so it has no window to do the job. But if you have a window, might as well use that to vent.
- The bathtub plus shower head isn't rare. But the separate toilet is, just as they said. In some very rare cases you even have a full bathroom including toilet, and an extra toilet room.
- And yes, kitchens and light fixtures aren't included. You bring your own. So you buy a nice kitchen for yourself, and take it with you to the next place. And imagine if the previous tenant bought a nice kitchen, and the landlord raises the rent because the apartment got better.
- Their pantry closet reminds me of my grandmother's place. She also had a small closet with canned food and cleaning stuff like her vacuum.
- Yes, fridges are smaller. I live alone, and I tend to do groceries about twice per week. Mine is about person height and has a separate freezer door underneath as well.
- Posters are just attached with tapes, picture frames want a nail, and these displate things have basically a magnet on double sided tape. I'm always wondering how the wallpapers like that.
- Their doors aren't too weird. Living room, bedroom, kitchen, two for the separate bathrooms, the computer room, the pantry. I have also one for my living room, bathroom, bedroom, kitchen. But I've taken out the living room and kitchen doors. They wait in the basement.
- Totally agree that they could store the bikes in the big entrance room. Or perhaps in the basement. That is usually a good choice. Basically halfway to the house exit.
- The basement in my house isn't that prison cell style, we have proper rooms with proper doors.
In general I would say it isn't the typical typical german apartment. Big entrance hall, separate toilet. But that could just be the case with the place they live at. And the place is indeed pretty big. They said 75 m², I live at 43 m² and when I still lived with my mother we had 56 m² for two, but with a balcony.
Indeed a rather old house and a lot of the things look like they used to have other uses. The trashcan chute might be an old coal chute. Or to keep food deliveries out of sight of the owner, that stuff is only for servants.
Of course we are taking our light fixtures with us! We choose them deliberately to tie in with the room's design and our personal taste. I have inherited antique ones no way I 'd leave them when I move out.
the numbers on temperature control device at 8:14 have a real meaning. if the radiator size is designed properly for this size of room, lets say the livingroom, 3 will be about 21C° means living temperature, 4 is about 23C° (like most bathrooms have), 5 will be about 25C° (almost nobody does this because its so expensive), while 1 is above 15C° (in germany we call this is the dew point regulation - to prevent the rooms from getting mold while the room is not used) and 2 is about 18-19C° like most sleeping rooms have.
Hallrooms are often highly ineffective: A large area (sometimes more than 10m²) which is only used for trespassing with limited possibility for furniture for storage, hanging clothes, etc.