Brit Reacts to German Homes: How The Germans Live
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- Опубліковано 2 чер 2024
- Is this is how you live in Germany? Let me know in the comments section below :)
Original video: • German Homes: How The ...
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„House shoes” are basically what English speakers call slippers. It’s just a literal translation from the German word „Hausschuhe” 😃
who wants to get cold feet when most appartments don't have floor heating ?
and there are quite some variants to not go barefoot or with the same stinky socks you were already wearing all day long in your "outside shoes", including socks (quite slippery when you have wooden/laminated floors), special house socks with 'anti-slipping", sandals, slippers, etc. "House shoes" can be just anything that you don't wear outside.
House shoes are quite practical, especially in Winter without floor heating. Also as a parent you will never again walk around your kids room without shoes after stepping on his legos once. And they give your puppy some new toys to chew on!
No kitchen in the rental appartment: well, we prefer to chose our own appliances, colors and so on, especially with long-time renting. Sometimes when you move you leave the kitchen behind (because it wouldn't really fit into the new place), and the next tennant pays you some money for it (if he wants it - if not you have to get rid of it).
I don't even have a heater in my actual appartment. Some of these buildings are so old, the big company running these buildings add some new "tech" and make it look good. That's a problem. The rent has doubled over the years and huge balconies were added, that no one uses but as a junkyard, and I'm not even downtown. Cold rent is 500€ now. Gonna be my 13th move to a different place soon :)
I think "house shoes" are an inappropriate translation, because it is the literal translation of the german word "Hausschuh(e)".
Slippers are more fitting. We often wear Birkenstocks as Hausschuhe.
I don't have floor heating. It's not especially cold but socks at least in winter. I wear the house shoes all year round. They protect my feet from stuff on the ground and from all the corners which like to get the toes. And I don't have so much dirty or worn socks.
even when generally keeping the appartment clean, some "spills" can never be avoided and cleaned up immediately all the time, as well as having some protection. most notably in the kitchen, in the bathroom, or also a toilet, in dusty basements/cellars or wet floors next to a washing machine, or storage rooms under the roof, as well as against random stuff in childrens rooms, or even a thumbtack in an office room or kitchen. ... just look what happened to Bruce Willis when he was barefoot in Die Hard, LOL :-)
@@SupJax 500 € means not a lot when you do not tell us how many square meters we are talking about
germany can get very hot in the summers and extremely brutal since we use no air conditioners so having a balcony is a huge plus ....and the springs are beautiful with all the flowers hanging everywhere
because of the temperatures in summer it is also useful to have blinds in the houses to don't let the heat come in and stay cool without ac.
Actually, that applies to more recent houses built after 1900. Older houses have heavy walls and ceilings, usually several centimeters of clay. That stuff regulates humidity and absorbs the day heat to keep the house cool. We lost the technology mostly in two wars just to have it come back now.
The shutters blocking out every ray of sunshine are not only practical at night in your bedroom, but especially in summer when it's burning hot outside. You can just shut them and there won't be any sunlight coming in and heating up your flat/ house. In the evening though, when it gets a little cooler again, you can open the shutters and "stoßlüften" (air out the apartment). I remember my parents always opening as many windows and doors of the house during a heavy rain/ thunderstorm after several really hot days to get some cold, fresh air in.
Me personally, I don't like sleeping with the shutters completely closed because then, my sense of time is ruined and I sleep ad ultimo.😅
they are also useful for protection, against breaking in if you live on the ground floor, and against really bad weather or hail, against heat on extreme days in the summer, or cold on extreme winter days, etc. And most people use some kind of curtains anyway, where you would need a second set of curtains against people from the outside seeing into your lighted appartment in the evening.
you also can partially close them, leaving those little slits for some light and some air (could be seen in the video just before it got completely dark)
Same here. Ich auch. When die Rollläden are down, I keep on sleeping den ganzen Tag. Terrible. Schlimm. Ich mag die better, die some light durchlassen. 😂
@@Winona493 You'd make my English teacher proud - he used to give us pearls like "In the Mittelalter you needed a Bügeleisen."
@@franhunne8929 🤣
If you have multiple people, you enter both or all surnames, but if that are to much, you just enter one and on the letter you would write:
Erika Mustermann
c/o Müller
Mainstreet 3
...
So they live in the house or appartment with the name "Müller".
Houseshoes:
If you don't have carpet in every room and no floor heating, it might get cold from below, so it is just warmer and you cannot bump your toes so easily.
With blinds, you can keep the sun out in summer, and it stays cold and you don't need an AC.
With a double or tripple glassed balcony door, it is not cold. You can even get a lot of sun inside in the winter and need not so much heating energy.
Wearing slippers inside is just more comfy especially in winter times, because carpets are very outdated here nowadays. We have wood floors, so we wear Hausschuhe to avoid cold feets😉
Houseshoes are basically just like slippers. I've seen planty for Brits wear slippers around the house.
You can paint a room any color you want, even in a rental, and have purple polka dots on neon orange, if you like, but as Rachel said, you'll have to repaint it in a neutral, widely acceptable color before you move out. Or pay the landlord to have it done professionally.
Hausschuhe/Pantoffeln - are just slippers and not everyone wears them. Usually you take off your shoes in the house. It's very common to do that as a visitor, too. Usually people ask whether they should take their shoes off when they come to visit. I don't wear house shoes much (my mother always tells me off for that, she thinks you'll catch a cold if you don't wear them, so I think it's a bit of a generational thing, too). 🙂
Feet must be kept warm at all times! 😃
Not everyone uses slippers and even people with slippers don't always use them, but when you go into the basement to do laundry, for example (in apartment buildings) you use sandals, so-called flip-flops or "slippers"...
Even if it's cold or just not really warm, many Germans use cozy slippers or extra thick special socks with small rubber nubs, or rubber slippers after showering...
As you can see, there are various slippers for different situations, I also have a pair of slippers next to the door when I have to go out quickly because of the garbage or because a delivery person is waiting down in the hallway (we live on the 3rd floor).
Well, I discovered your channel today, let's see if I can check it out more often...
Too cold for balconies? Our climate isn't that different from the UK. 😜
In summertime it's warmer than in the UK, in wintertime colder - as it is a more continental climate than in the UK.
House shoes can be convenient sometimes. Especially in winter the floor might be too cold for comfort in some places and wearing house shoes can be an easy fix. In the summer I'm usually barefoot in my apartment, but in winter I often wear house shoes when walking around or standing somewhere for an extended period of time.
Most apartments are completely "empty", that is without a kitchen, even if you only rent them and it's your responsibility to get your own kitchen (and take it with you when you move out). Of course, there are also some (partly) furnished apartments for rent or places where the landlord or previous tenant offers you to leave some of the furniture or the kitchen in for you if you want to "buy" it from them, but for an unlimited rent a completely "empty" apartment is probably the most common. (Personally, I like it that way, because you can get the kitchen you want and you don't have to ask for permission to replace something or have to keep "the old stuff" and restore everything the way it was if you move out. And there is no arguing about who has to pay for repairs, whether you're allowed to fix stuff by yourself or any other possible "conflict of interests".)
similar also applies to the walls. by clarifying that they have to be freshly made in a neutral color (which often can be negotiated with the previous tenant or your successor) you are free to paint them or use wallpaper whenever you want in whatever color or with whatever patterns you want during your lease, including neon pink or black, or whatever would be fun for children ... usually, this also includes being able to drill some holes to hang up something (even small nails for pictures sometimes need drilling when you have concrete walls, or bigger holes for furniture, mirrors or ceiling lamps), as long as it is reversible on moving out.
Quite a lot of rental appartments come with kitchens and if not you can often give the previous renters a couple of bucks and have them leave the kitchen. I've moved about 10 times in Germany and only once there was no kitchen.
It depends on the region. I also moved a lot during my life (I guess about 13 or 15 times) and only one time I did not find an appartement with a kitchen pre installed. There are regions where furnished kitchens are like rare gems, in other regions about 30 - 50% of the rentals have one installed by the landlord. Both has pros an cons.
@@Herzschreiber Not even the Region it depends on who the landlord caters to and of course whats available more often.
Flats that are more "short term" oriented (like people that just live there for 6 Months or 3-4 years) very likely want a pre installed kitchen.
I highly doubt there is a single region with 30-50% pre installed kitchens that could be confirmation bias.
Seen and heard it all as a Plumber.
@@mrn234 hmm, so it may be not only a regional thing but also a generations thing. I am 62 now. And during the first half of my life I found lots and lots of rentals with pre installed kitchens in RhPf. and BaWü. My friend in the north of Germany did not at the same time, but everything changes so it may also be a "generations thing in my head" :D
@@Herzschreiber Maybe you somehow just found flats that have one pre installed (weirdest shit happens)
0:15 For warmth. These are fluffy shoes closer to socks than outside shoes.
That said, I know few people who have and use them. Usually very small women who are always cold.
And these things exist as far away as Japan and as far back as Ancient Rome.
Thanks for your video, it was fun to watch! As an Austrian, i.e. a direct neighbor of Germany, I would like to explain a few points:
0:45 Addresses in Germany and Austria are also structured in this way because the large unit is subdivided into small units. First the zip code at the bottom, then the town, above that the street, then the house number, above that the name of the addressee. It's a bit like the numbers spoken in German. While you say tenty and two in English, you would say two and twenty in German. It's an german language thing...
1:45 Of course, there are also large apartment complexes with doorbells that are labeled with tops, i.e. apartment numbers. But in smaller residential units with around six to ten parties, usually only the surnames are noted on the bell. This prevents the risk of confusion when delivering mail, as the surname can be used as a guide.
2:30 Cold and warm rent means whether the heating (and a few other small things) is included, so to speak.
3:40 West and East Germany can be clearly distinguished visually. For example, the quality of the streets is clearly different between the two former parts of the state. Homes have also been inspired or influenced differently. East Germany was led by the Soviet influence towards prefabricated buildings, which can still be seen today. And the fall of the Wall was almost 35 years ago, but it's currently also visible.
7:40 Slippers. Usually offered to visitors (but also worn by residents) in older buildings in particular, as stone tiles are often laid on the floor of brick buildings. There is rarely underfloor heating in older buildings, which makes walking on the floor more comfortable. Street shoes are usually placed in an anteroom after entering the house so that no dirt is dragged into the house.
10:30 Balconies. The argument probably applies more to the residents of rental apartments. Rarely do terraced houses have green spaces and gardens attached to the building. In single-family homes that belong to the owner, a garden is usually included. We like to use a balcony to have a clear view of the outside even when it is raining or snowing. It's a Germany-Austria thing :)
12:00 Kitchens are usually set up by yourself when you move in. For this reason, only a basic installation is provided, especially for newly built rental apartments. Should it be a simple wooden counter with a hob or a luxury stainless steel or stone tiled counter with an induction hob? Cooking is essential for us. :D However, in apartments that are already in use, the kitchen or toilet are usually handed over as they are. So when you move out of an apartment, you don't tear out the kitchen.
13:30 Coloring apartments. The people moving out usually do this themselves, as the costs for painting are otherwise charged to the previous tenant by the apartment owner. And in Germany, an hour's work for a painter is quite expensive.
Sorry for the possibly broken English, it's been a few years since I actively used it :)
"Schreber-Gardens" are small gardens, that you can rent without a house. Mostly there are Parks with dozens of gardens and a community that keeps the order.
And on these gardens are often Micro-Homes or campers. It's not allowed to live there, but some people do anyway.
But you can stay on the Weekends or the Holidays. Mostly these gardens are rented for life and are very rare to come by.
Schrebergarten translates to allotment in English - and are known in the UK. The former Labour candidate, Corbyn, was famous for his allotment.
The more solid outside blinds are also a safety feature, as they pretty much close the windowpane away from potential intruders. They help keeping heat in in winter (you lower them as soon as it gets dark) and out in summer, because you can very effectively shade a room.
Actually there’s also a security aspect to the shutters, making it harder to break in a house
Not really harder, but certainly louder.
8:53 Hausschuhe are not normal shoes. They are for comfort warm feet. Like crocs, fear boots. Thick wool socs whith antiskip Rubber pads.
Hi, Dwayne! Camping and Caravaning makes more sense for germans than for british, because we can easier drive to neighbour countries.
Why house-shoes? Well, house-shoes/ slippers provide more support, it's warmer in the cold season, and in summer you don't leave sweat stains all over the floor. I also find possible crumbs and hair and lint on the socks disgusting! 😝😄
I moved to the UK 5 years ago, and what has been the biggest shock to the system are 1 bedroom houses, you hardly find them in Germany, I actually never saw one before. And I miss the German blinds.
The uk houses have more carpets I guess. German Houses have often floors made of wood or tiles. It’s very cold, especially in the winter times. Wearing just socks is nasty I think and barefoot is a bit unpractical. So we have our well loved Birkenstocks. Another name for “Hausschuhe” is “Pantoffel”. Pantoffeln are often lined with fur or something.
Those shoes not only keep your feet warm, they also prevent you from slipping on tiles or wooden stairs. I (German) grew up with those shoes and can't imagine why anyone would not want to have shoes for the house :)
0:04 The shown shoes where not typical house shoes! And It's an decreasing trend to me. 1:31 Es gibt auch kleinere Schrift :-p Or you can say which name is on the bell. Incidentally, there is no obligation to write a name on the blade (although that would be very counterproductive, for example for the emergency services)
9:50 Roller shutters are usually built into the structure of the house/window. That's why you usually equip all windows with it to get a uniform look. Roller shutters are also very helpful when it comes to burglary protection.
10:28 In Germany there are also seasons..
11:38 Square Pillows exist, but I personally never had one the last 45 Years.
11:54 That is not right. A distinction is made between PURCHASE and RENTAL. There is a legal minimum kitchen equipment requirement for tenants. (cupboard, sink, stove and oven)
When you move out, you can of course only take what belongs to you!
13:17 Here too, you have to differentiate between what is in the contract and what the actual legal requirements (or their interpretation that the courts have made over the years) are!
Some of what is in rental agreements is no longer permitted and another agreement comes into force instead of the invalid one.
In any case, I find it very interesting that some things are explained that are not true. This may be because our legal system is quite complicated (but that makes it fairer, in my opinion). This includes the fact that courts can determine the specific interpretation of laws if the legislature has found ambiguities. Unfortunately, even many Germans don’t know that.
There is no need for a kitchen in a rental. Only if the rental defines "with kitchen" then your minimum is needed.
@@reinhard8053 Stimmt, wenn explizit ohne Küche vermietet wird.
Don't imagine "house shoes" like the shoes you wear outside! They are there so that it won't be too slippery to run around with only socks - (imagine socks on tiled flors instead of carpet or laminat), and a lot of appartements do not have floor heating. In some of the old houses the floor is always very cold in winter time! I could never walk around only in socks, me feet would be ice cold all the time! And house shoes can be anything, starting with sandals, Birkenstocks, filt slippers, whatever you can imagine. They are not "normal shoes"...... look what she showed in the video: Just a pair of Birkenstocks.
The blinds which black out light totally are not only good for creating a dark room, they are also great to protect windows from hail stones, super strong wind etc.! So if there is an extreme weather they can be very helpful in any room. Moreover they keep your privacy when it is dark outside. With curtains a person outside will at least be able to see your blurry silhouette or alike.... when you shut those blinds, nobody can tell if there is light in a certain room at all!
We have the same with The adress here in Sweden
I don't want cold feet. Especially in the winter, so houseshoes are definitely needed. The stones or tiles on the floor can be so 🥶.
And roller blinds are very useful in all rooms to keep the light and the summer heat outside.
We don't particularly like carpets. So house shoes/slippers come in twice handy.
For larger residential units, not only the surname but at least the first letter of the first name is indicated on the doorbell sign if two or more tenants have the same surname. If the first letter of the first name is also frequently represented, the whole first name is usually also indicated.
Hey Dwayne
just wanted to let you know it's an absolute joy to watch your videos /reactions
You seem to be a very likeable open minded guy
I will definitely check out your other channels
I have been to the UK many times in the past and would love to visit again in some time
Keep it up
Greetings from Lower Saxony in Germany
Regarding the roller shutters: As there are generally no clearly recognisable bedrooms in flats in Germany when they are empty, you can basically choose freely for each room whether it is a bedroom, living room, dining room, study or children's room. As a result, it would not be so practical to fit roller shutters in just one room and usually the entire flat is fitted with them. Even if you may never use them in the living room.
House shoes are mainly for winter to ceap warm feed without needingt to heat the house to much
I have a Mercedes Sprinter that I converted into a van myself. I live in it for 2/3 of the year. The rest of the time I live in my little house, which I bought in Finland.
In Germany, it would not have been possible for me to buy something comparable at this price (house, land + forest) in the next 40 years.
German is a VERY literal language. What would be called slippers in English was given the literal meaning of what they are: shoes for inside the house, shortened to house-shoes. That's basically the deal with all of these outrageously long compound words: they are all combined from very simple shorter words that describe one aspect often very literally each. It might not be as specific as English with its many specialized terms but all these compound words can all be broken down into words an average five year old would understand. As obviously a house doesn't need shoes (except possibly in a very weird fairytale, maybe 😂), a Hausschuh is a shoe to be worn inside a house.
You have lots of those apartment blocks in the west as well.
Germany has been reunited for over 30 years now. I was born in the west, moved to the east 25 years ago, and today I don't see much of a difference anymore
In the big cities you hardly see any difference. There are still remains in rural areas. that time has forgotten.
Kitchen in a rented apartment: It varies from region to region whether there is a fitted kitchen or not. In northern Germany it is generally the case that a kitchen is part of the apartment. Advantage: you don't have to buy one. Disadvantage: you take the one that's inside, and if it's 25 years old and no longer as good, well, tough luck. In Central Germany (as far as I know), it is more common, as shown in the video. Unfortunately I can't say anything about southern Germany and kitchens in rental apartments. Greetings from Northern Germany...
2:47 In every Rent we have the „Kaltmiete“ and „warmmiete“
Kaltmiete is the part of warmmiete that we pay for the Home. The Bills are always included. If we pay to much for the bills, we get the rest back.
As I know Japanese and also Turkish Families also wear slippers/houseshoes and even have spare ones for their guests? Especially if u have a home that hasn't carpet but laminate or parquet!
I lived in several east german places, in the middle and in the west, coming from Bavaria originally. People are different. They focus a lot on family in the east, good living, south is chill but nobody actually cares about anything, in west german cities you don't get a rest, and mid Germany is where the standard High German (dialect actually) comes from, and the landscape is all different. I like the land in East Germany, it's colorful. 3:25
They were separate for about a generation, that doesn't go away quickly (in the "Americans think 100 years are a long time" way). Especially considering the experiences weren't the same post-unification, either. Will need a couple of generations, I guess.
To the kitchen - standard in every flat is at least a sink and oven. It is possible that you have a full kitchen in a rented flat - sometime from the old tenants or from the landlords/renting companies.
Sometimes the kitchen stays in the flat but then usually you have to buy it off from the previous renter.
2:30 we don't have to chose between cold rent and warm rent. We nearly always have to pay the warm rent. The cold rent is the part of rent which is fix, while the warm rent can change depends on your use of water or heating
all you find when you move into a new flat in germany is the lightbulbs that hang from the ceiling...no lamps, no furniture, no kitchen.... just an empty space
Tiny houses need much more space than appartement houses. And they can't be isolated as well as a house. Together with the size and the limits in window weight they need comparably more energy for heating. That is only countered by the small room needed and less not used room as in houses.
14:10 You need to renovate your apartment if you have the following factors:
If the apartment was newly renovated when you moved in, it must also be renovated when you move out
If there is a renovation clause in the rental agreement, the tenant may have to renovate during the rental agreement. There are no precise legal regulations as to how the clause must be formulated.
Important: It is not uncommon for the court to decide whether so-called renovation clauses are valid or not.
And we all got a different taste in furniture and kitchen! As we have a floor which is cold we wear socks or slippers. A balcony is wonderful, as it can be hot in summer.❤
painting your apartment in "white" when you are moving out is only required if you moved into a "painted" apartment.
i had to remove the old tenants' wallpaper and put new ones on the walls. so im not required to paint my apartment if i move out.
i am required to cover up "holes" in the walls from shelves and picture frames
quite often, those renovations can be negotiated with previous tenants or successors or the landlord, so that some pretty painted walls or wallpaper don't need to be removed and redone without need. but on the other hand i know people who had painted their appartment in black and dark red, which took quite some cleaning and multiple new layers of paint to undo, and that work and costs just can't be left to the landlord or the new tenants.
I had apartments that were already renovated/painted when I moved in, and others where I had to do the painting in the beginning - so that I could choose how my walls should look like. I truly prefered that option. Of course I didn't have to renovate those when I moved out. If the walls are white and I'm supposed to leave the apartment with white walls, I will have to paint twice. First after moving in, and second back to white when I move out. What a waste.
If there are several people with the same surname, I think the property management usually adds the first letter of the first name to the nameplate. But that's not always the case. There are also doorbell signs at house entrances without a letterbox.
The letterboxes are often separate.
In addition to the bell plate on the front door of the building, there are also bell plates on the front door of the flat.
I think his question regarding surnames was more "what if multiple people share a place?", which would mean, the bell just has multiple names next to it, instead of one.
In appartment blocks the names for the letterbox might be inside the letterbox system and only visible to the postman. For houses and such there must be a visible name or you won't get your mail.
House shoes: 1. warm feet 2. less bumping your toes 😅
The son of our neighbour bought a tiny house 4 years ago and is damn happy tbh, he said. :D Anyway.. grts from munich
Blinds are very practical, especially in smaller towns/villages cause you can see everything after dark and cause the Winter curtains were not very popular. Also for safety. It is not usual, that the "door bells" are inside the apartment house, but outside, so that no-wanted people are able to get in the house at all, in Finland. And those are long gone also, replaced by number codes or remote keys. Well, East Germany has still a lot to catch up. I used to live and work over a decade in many different places in Germany. Muenster, Hamburg, Wiesbaden, Kronberg, Frankfurt am Main and Munich. Usually I visit my friends at least once a year or/and they come to Finland. Just came back from Bad Homburg and my German friends were here 2 weeks in the end of May to watch Ice Hockey WM. A good excuse😂❤😅 to go to the Summer House. Sauna, Lake, Barbecue and some great German beer❤❤
About names for homes instead of numbers. A long time ago buildings and properties where named after the person living or lived in it. People even took on names of the property when moving in. House numbers where very rare in rural areas. Post addresses often only include the town street and then the persons full name. This concept never disappeared completely even with the introduction of property numbers.
If you own a house and have built in a kitchen you sell it together with house. With rental apartments its different: there are apartments with built in kitchens or some that have only s sink and a stove. Or nothing at all. If you leave it can be required by the landlord that you remove the kitchen or he might accept that the next rentor buys it from you. As for "Hausschuhe", I use something like Birkenstocks, which I wear within in the house only. If I dont, my feet get cold.
Well, I live in a weekend area. It's an area that used to be for weekend stays only. Similar to the Russian dachas.
The advantage is that the plots are usually much larger but the houses are smaller. There is usually a building restriction on a certain square metre size. Here it is 75 square metres, which must not be exceeded. And the plot must be at least 3000 square metres in size. But there is no sewer, no tarmac roads, no streetlights. These areas are always somewhere outside, usually in wooded areas.
Gradually it was permitted to register your primary residence here. So I live in a 75 square metre house on a 3500 square metre plot in the forest.
11:59 As a rule, social housing has no kitchen, only has PVC flooring and the bathrooms have simple tiles, but the rents are significantly to very significantly cheaper. In the expensive apartments, there are usually kitchens, laminate or parquet and expensive tiles in the bathrooms.
Everyone has their own comforter. An absolute MUST! I mean, we have already caused nasty wars, but we have also learned to avoid wars.♥☯☮
Hans Hansen | Hamburg | St Pauli
The Beatles played their first gigs here around the corner in the red light district.
Regarding the kitchens we use to spend a lot of money for the kitchen we love. So when we move into a new appartment we take it with us.
Sometimes, when you go to the toilet at night, half asleep and possibly in the dark, you like to get your toes caught on furniture or the corners of the house, at the latest then you appreciate slippers!😅
14:24 We used to have an apartment where the landlord regularly paid for and carried out the complete renovation. The kitchen and bathroom, every 2 years, living room every 3 years, bedroom every 5 years, heating and windows outside every 10 years, windows and doors inside every 5 years. We were even able to choose colors and wallpaper. However, these rental agreements have not existed for around 30 - 35 years. However, if you still have an old rental agreement, you can count yourself lucky.
99.99999999999% of German do not live in tiny houses, houseboats, camper vans, etc.. So i have no idea why this is was mentioned.
Buying appartments is also not so popular because of the expensive buying fees and taxes. In order for these costs to be worth it, you have to plan to live there for a very long time. However, many people want to be flexible and if they are starting a family they would rather buy or build an entire house.
19:20 We have 29 windows, 22 of which have electric blinds in our house. They serve as protection against burglary and sun protection so that the house doesn't get too hot. Our largest window is 3.50 m x 2.75 m, so a lot of sun comes in. It also saves energy; the heat is not lost so quickly in winter.
House shoes because it’s comfortable they are not really shoes they are slipper’s or soft kind of shoes? We call them terlik in Turkish and our moms love to throw them 🥹😂
Coldrent in Germany isn't about the renter has to find the contracts for water and heating. it's more the basic rent for this amount of sqauremeters and on top of that the landlord demand the estimated extra costs for heating, water (for your apartment) and costs shared between all neighbours like janitor, winterservice etc.
At the bottomline you always will pay the warmrent but it's better to know how much is the coldrent so you can compare better if this appartment is too. expensive.
Hi there!
Love your way of commenting!
So yes, when there are multiple people living in one apartment with different surnames they usually are all put on the bell and post sign. This can get a bit cramped in the case of bigger “WGs” (Wohngemeinschaft meaning the sharing of a flat with people outside your family i.e. flatmate) but it is the way it’s done…
When it comes to renting apartments: I have never had a lease without utilities but you always know the “Kaltmiete” and the “warmmiete”. Usually the utilities include gas, water and other housing costs (garbage collection etc) but not electricity. Of course it can be included but usually isn’t. The Kaltmiete is always given, so you can compare rents better as the utilities can vary depending on several things and may therefore vary more then the pure rent.
Obviously there was a big difference between east and west when the wall fell but there has been a lot of money and effort put into subsidising the east in order to get the standards equal. Such things take time though and after 30 years of unification there are still significant differences.
Sparkling water is very German and is usually bottled since the soda stream systems are still relatively new. But: Germanys tap water has drinking quality throughout the country so filling up a glass of water from the tap is no problem
The blinds are great for sleeping. But they are also useful in keeping the heat inside in Winter and outside in summer as they double also as a kind of insulation
I don’t know where the square pillow comes from but it’s usually 80x80 cm
The kitchen is not considered part of the apartment. Often you can buy the previous renters kitchen though so you don’t have to buy a new one every time, but the kitchen is the renters property and can be moved with everything else. I myself am very attached to my big fridge/freezer unit and second freezer and other appliances so i usually take my kitchen with me when I move.
When you move out the state of your flat depends on how you moved in. Usually it is actually the opposite, most apartments are “unrenovated” so you have to paint and renovate upon moving in which then means you don’t renovate when moving out (except closing holes in the walls) and vice versa.
Can’t wait for your next post on Germany! :)
In apartment houses there is usually one doorbell panel and one letterbox per flat, marked with the name of the (main) tenant. Sometimes the panels offer place enough for multiples surnames, or the partner sharing the flat simply squeeze both their surnames into it. Flats can have their own numbers, but those are normally not used in post addresses, so the mailman needs the surname to get the right box - in shared flats the flatmates can use their own surname with "c/o" the surname with is displayed at the letterbox for an address. (Another variant would be: first the letterbox name, than "z.Hd." the own name, which means "zu Händen von" - "for the attention of ".)
9:50 It is simply simpler and therefore more efficient to have the same blinds at all windows, where you could some time need any kind of blind. Those rolling blinds are also a mass product and therefore rather cheap to install.
11:40 The pillow size 80 x 80 (cm), often filled with down feathers and then called a Daunenkissen (down feather pillow), is simply tradition (in Austria often 70 x 90). The "comfort pillows" in size 40 x 80 have been gaining in market share during the last years, but if you search for "Kissen" or "Kopfkissen" ("head pillow" in contrast to couch pillows) most online shops will still offer more pillows and pillowcases in the traditional format.
12:00 Germans do rent flats, but not kitchens. A good kitchen is expensive and the love of its owners, and so there are "Küchenstudios" (kitchen studios) all over the place where you can get your individually compiled kitchen. Sometimes a former tenant will leave their kitchen in the flat, if you pay some compensation, and some landlords will provide some mini kitchen (basically a cupboard 100 to 120 cm width with an inbuilt sink, two inbuilt cooking plates and often a mini fridge) until you get your own kitchen appliances and furniture. If a flat comes with furniture, it will be offered as "möbliert" or "teilmöbliert" (partly furnished), which will as a rule include a (not very new) kitchen; in other cases an included kitchen will be listed explicitly in the ad (sometimes with an amendment like "upon request removable").
If another family with the same surename lives in your building, just put the first letter of your first name (M. Mustermann) or your full first name before the surename.
Seems to me you got the notion of "house shoes" a bit wrong. We have "street shoes" (or in winter, sometimes boots), but when we get into the house, we put them off and slip into our warm and cosy "house shoes", which can be light sandals, or, in my case, woolen slippers in winter we call our "house shoes" although these actually aren't shoes. Maybe we should use the term "indoor footwear". Unfortunately, I have no floor heating in my house, but if I had, I wouldn't wear any "shoes" at all indoors.
Better call them slippers or sth!😂 Houseshoes are not really shoes but more cozy, made out off fur (the vegan ones, please!!!) or like thicker socks with Antirutschbeschichtung (anti slip coating?). You know: these little dots under the formerly slippery socks. It is not easy to find these words in English though.😂
EMpty kitchen: There is also the situation that you can buy the old kitchen from the person living in the apartment before you. but it depends: some people want too much money, so the kitchen has to go with them. just like some kind of price poker.
I drove a lot through East Germany in the 1990s. Traces from WW2 could still be seen on many, many old buildings, the streets were a disaster, only in the city centers were the streets halfway ok. But the further you drove towards the outskirts of the city, the worse the roads became, some of the roads were like dirt roads, without asphalt or paving stones, just sand and dirt! In the villages it was even worse.
Kitchen and painting are mostly about the landlord not having to deal with your stuff when offering it again, so you have to get it back into a neutral state easier to market.
Which means agreements with the new tenant, which you have to show the place anyway, are standard.
Especially for kitchens - the first thing you do is negotiate about buying the old kitchen because removing it is just a waste, so it's easier for everyone to just sell it to the next one for cheap. (unless you have bad luck - in my own first apartment, I bought the old kitchen, but then had to rip it out because the landlord picked an old lady that brought her own kitchen, not the student that would have happily taken the used one. Ended up in a landfill for no good reason. *sigh*)
Or you look for a flat where a kitchen is included (once again, easier to market), but that is something you need to look for specifically.
Same for painting - if the next tenant likes what you did there, you can just keep it.
I don't wear house shoes at home, I walk around in socks. But I own house shoes (Birkenstocks) to bring out the trash 😀
House shoes i see kind of historical. You cant afford to heat up all rooms of your house, especially if you have an older one prior to the heat insulation rules your floors can get pretty cold, especially the first floor / ground floor where the cold of the cellars moved through the floor. And as we barely have floor heating but this things on the walls. Nowadays you heat all rooms and have good Isolation, though your floors get less cold and the need of house shoes is decreasing. As well most house shoes i know are just a cosy thing, if you are someone with regularly cold feet, you might have them to warm up. Or you are just uncoordinated and dont wanna break you blank toes at the doors or chairs standing around 😑
Regarding the question of why we wear „Houseshoes“ (slippers) in Germany:
Many houses in Germany are old or were built very quickly with little resources after the war. Therefore, very few old buildings have underfloor heating and carpets get dirty quickly and hardly provide any warmth if they are thin and are therefore easier to clean than warmer long-floor carpets. So we wear slippers in the house! The feet are not directly on the cold ground and the street shoes remain outside with the dirt.
If different people live in one apartment, you just write c/o and the name of the registered person in this apartment below the name of the person you want to address. The c/o just means "with".
4:56 I don't, but I'm absolutely open to the idea. I just fear you'd need to take a lot of rules and regulations into account, which would contradict that particular feeling of freedom a bit, that might come with the idea of living in an unconventional home. But maybe it would still be worth it, no idea... it probably depends...
It's not unusual for people to own a caravan, you do see them in a few driveways. Not sure I would say caravaning is actually big in Germany, though. At the same time it also seems to be very common to do all inclusive vacations.
"House shoes" really are just slippers or a certain type of sandals like seen in the video. Not everyone wears or even owns them. To me they even seem a little old fashioned.
In my childhood, these curtains were very useful for playing games that required the room to be dark, at any time of the day. It could be the middle of a hot summer day with the sun being particularly bright, the room would still be pitch black (and also cooled down). As an adult, I can't think of many occasions you would need your living room to be pitch black. Yes, watching films or also photos would be one of them. Depending on the shutters, it might also be useful for safety reasons, though as far as I know you'd need a certain type of shutters to really prevent criminals from breaking into your home. But maybe the hassle and the time it takes to get regular shutters out of the way (plus maybe some additional noise, as well) might already shy them away.
Sitting on the balcony of course might be too cold in winter, but you could still store some things on it to keep them cold. People also go out there to smoke.
In my city most apartments come with a kitchen, which doesn't seem to be a common thing in other cities. If it doesn't come with a kitchen, it's common for the previous tenant to offer their kitchen to you to buy it.
6:55 What percentage of Germans go on camping holidays?
But even after the pandemic situation has subsided, camping holidays remain popular: around 23 percent of holidaymakers in Germany preferred camping holidays as their type of holiday in 2022. 7 days ago
House Shoes… my feet are always cold😊
Traveling in your own campervan or caravan has really had a renaissance in Germany due to the pandamic. It used to be considered totally outdated for a couple of centuries, but when there was no way to travel anywhere outside of the country and people also wanted to keep distance, many discovered camping as an alternative to hotels and long-distance trips. Some of those "new" campers have dismissed this kind of traveling after the pandemic, but many have come to appreciate it.
Why do Europeans, i.e. not only Germans, but also Austrians, Swiss and other nations, have a blind on their windows?
Because if it's an extremely hot summer again, and you're not at home during the day, you can lower the blind and it stays nice and cool in the whole apartment, because where no sun can heat up furniture, there's no heat, and in the evening when you come home from work, you open it again and it's pleasant in the apartment. A roller blind has several functions, on the one hand if you want it to be dark inside, on the other hand for cooling and on the third hand if you close it only so far that the small openings are still visible, you can open or tilt the window to ventilate without the warm air flowing inside.
Let's see:
* The builder doesn't know which room will be your living room, so they just make all windows the same.
* The floor is the coldest part of any room (unless it's heated).
* "Names instead of numbers" refers to apartment numbers, not house numbers.
* The kitchen is furniture, just like any other piece of furniture in your flat. It's not considered part of the structure like doors. Naturally, you can rent furnished or partially furnished, but it's not the default.
* Painting is a give and take. On the one hand, you can do whatever you like to the walls you're renting; on the other hand, you'll have to give them back in a neutral state. (Originally, that was "as you got them", but that later was ruled unfair for renters.) Some landlords offer rental contracts that only state that walls must be "in a decent state", as they expect the next renter to paint/wallpaper them anyway. But, naturally, those flats don't look as nice when they are offered for rent.
Wo don't pay the rent separately, except the energy costs. It's on one bill. The thing is the Cold rent doesn't rise.
House Shoes, so that you do not get cold feet. When you have a very modern apartment with floor heating, then possibly not needed. Kitchens are mostly measured exactly to your room size, so it is not efficient to take them with you, when you move. Either you talk to the new tennant and sell it to them, or you rip it out and throw it away, if it is really worn out. But most times, the new tennant will take the kitchen, because they cost around 10.000€ new. For Blinders... there was a building law last century, where every apartment on ground floor had to have these kind of shades to help prevent burglary. You can lock them from the inside with two little metal pins, so that they cannot be pushed upwards from the outside. And they are pretty sturdy. But you are right, for a cinema or movie room they are very good. But beware, if you are used to sleep only in the pitch black, then you have trouble sleeping anywhere else for a long time.
19:20 We have 29 windows, 22 of which have electric blinds in our house.
Well, I'm not German but Austrian, but I also wear house shoes.
Not these ugly Birkenstock types though. I prefer leather slippers, which go very well with my dressing gown.
Hey Dwayne, houseschoes are very important in Winter, as special you smoke a cigarette on balcony, but even so.
If you're unlucky, you change apartments and first have a contract where you have to paint walls when you move out and then a contract where you have to paint walls when you move in. Moving the kitchen is not so difficult here, where we Germans know how to assemble this furniture. It's also not difficult to hire someone. Our kitchen furniture is also very affordable because you can spend €3,000 to get a new one when you move. So there are no €30,000 kitchens that are treated like raw eggs. So if you can pay €3,000 for your own kitchen, you don't want a rental agreement that's €150 higher because of a provided kitchen.
I live in a camper van in Berlin.
House shoes are obligated when your child loves to play with lego :)
5:55 I'd love to live in a container home (I don't need the living space of a normal house but I do need a long straight corridor for my gym room, which is larger than any normal German house will ever have) but, as per usual in Germany, ANYTHING unconventional is almost impossible to get approved by the authorities. That's pretty much the deal with Germany. It's so ridiculously overregulated that it's usually (not always though, sometimes everyone loses) good for the many and bad for the few.
I live in a city of close to 350k people and I am aware of less than 10 tiny houses legally parked here. That said, many cities have "Wagenburgen" (literally waggon/cart castles), which is usually a community of people living in mobile homes (like literal waggons refit to house people) like those you'd see at a construction site. That trend is much older than the tiny house movement and is, I believe, more of a political thing whereas the regular tiny house stuff started as a way to combat homelessness and now is simply a trend (the usual sustainability argument is often flawed when you actually consider other sustainable alternatives, especially in colder climates).
10:30 We have both colder winters and hotter summers than you guys in the UK bc we're a bit further South than you and further away from the Gulf Stream. German summers can get pretty bad for my taste, actually.
13:20 She forgot to mention that the requirement to paint the rooms in particular is actually illegal. Germany is the country with THE MOST lawsuits per capita BY FAR. Robust laws but employers and landlords still trying to fuck you over is probably the main reason. (And when I say by far, I do mean by far. Almost double the figure for the no. 2 country)
Edit: and you can absolutely contest that (although my former employer tried the old "well, legal or not, you signed it" trick) as no contract is above the law.
It seems when it comes to unconventional things, someone needs to start a proper project and get the city to approve of it, so it eventually becomes a "city project". Or the city itself wants to become more modern with more unconventional projects, to attract more people. If you want to do something unconventional on your own, well, good luck, I guess...
Houseshoes are just comfortable 😂
Just going to say one thing: experience the full blow of German undigitalized bureaucracy and you will definitely rethink the efficiency part. (I mean, we still are quite efficient, I guess, so long as it's about private or business things. As soon as the law, politics or other authorities/offices, ministries, etc. are involved, you can mostly forget about that.)
I the summer we don’t need ac’s. Just block the sun with those “Rollos”. Your room will be cold all day long.
Just go and live there it's amazing
8:23 We don't go into the apartment or house in street shoes; most women wear slippers because they get cold feet more quickly.
Being in the house does not mean the floor is warm and clean (for example with pets hair). House shoes keep your feet warm and clean and safe from stepping into something you don't want to like children's toys.
You want to have blinds in every room because it saves you money. First it's harder to break in, second you can keep heat or the cold outside and the blinds isolate the room.
I don't want kitchen appliances that were used by the tenant before me. You'll never know how clean they were. I had one time an apartment with kitchen and the oven was disgusting. I did not use it at all while living there. And I prefer specific appliances and not some that are from the stone age.
The rule about painting it in a neutral color is important. If you ever tried to paint a wall in lighter color that someone else painted black or any other dark color you will know the struggle to get that covered. No landlord want to do that work. Paint your rental like you want, but when you move out leave it with a neutral color ( most ask for white). Some want you even remove the wallpaper if there is more than one layer.
The rules about noise are not in every rental agreement, but they are laws in Germany. Only what extends those laws will be in a rental agreement.
The Blinds also stopps Thiefs from brake into your house
Not all have theses boller blinds, I haven't too, but it's nice when you play video games. In the most city blocks, only the ground floor has These for some reason.
Mostly for extra burglary protection.
I used to live in an old circus camper for years
11:44 We have different sizes and shapes of pillows in Germany.