Wash after 10. Clean your car on a Sunday. Use wire to wrap your cardboard. Put a token battery in the glass collection bins.
Yeahhhhhhh...... who's with me?????.... yeahhhhhhh!!!!!! Feeels goood!!!
Go against the system.
Mate what you do with your bells after 10pm is nobody's business.
I have honestly not had complaints about using the toilet late at night, only the shower. I have also not heard anyone that has been admonished for using the shower or bath late say they had the same for the toilet either.
I suspect it will often depend on how anonymous you are in the block & how young the folks are. It seems it'sthe older folks trying to set the ground rules for the newbies. A lady that works in our office was out watching the rugby with us on Saturday night and yesterday was confronted by someone in her block for stomping around and moving furniture while she was in the Pub with us. NO matter what she tried to say in her defence it was not acceptable till eventually she said she was sorry. She had been loving it here until that point so hopefully for here it's over quick and forgotten.
We have seven weeks left in our temporary apartment and I'm just wondering if we can avoid eviction before we move into our real detached house. It's 1:45am and our dog has woken up to start chewing his bone. He can't tell the time yet and doesn't know it's gone 10pm.
Bone chewing makes a lot of noise on the tiled floor, almost as much as moving furniture. However, it does actually prevent him from barking at our sleeping cats, his reflection in the windows, mossies etc. I guess it's a no win situation. Apartment hell has made us jump to his attention whenever he barks in order to stop him making a noise. Back home he would bark for 5-minutes, we ignore him, nobody hears him and he's back to sleep.
My advice to potential expats with kids and pets: If you do not already live in an apartment, don't move into one in Switzerland. If an apartment is all you can get here, stay where you are. The stress of trying to keep quiet to Swiss standards is significant and can end up putting your job at risk. If your employer refuses to accept that noise will be a problem for you, get them to put it in writing that they accept all responsibility for any noise complaints and to find you a suitable house or pay for repatriation.
It's 2:10am and now I need to use the toilet. I don't need to flush it to wake the neighbours, the extractor fan makes enough noise when I switch on the light. I guess that's not the landlord's problem either and I should use a torch.
I was reading through all the complaints and just wondering how thin are the walls in Switzerland that you not even can use the toilet in night time? I hope the walls can keep out the smell if you do a "nr 2" and can't flash till next morning.
The walls are reasonable thick and made in the favourite Swiss building material - Concrete. It's just that they insist on making every surface inside the building highly sound reflective which seems to amplify any noise.
Flash? Do behave .
Oops I ment "flush"
Maybe the neighbors won't mind if there's some "flashing" from the window's
If only I had read that back in April before I quit my job in the U.S. and put my house on the market.
That's a bit over the top - seems you have been unlucky to get into an apartment block that has particularly intolerant neighbours and strict house regulations.
It certainly isn't the case everywhere that things are so bad but I do agree that it can be very stressful conducting your patterns of life to the impossibly high expectations of others, a very real problem in Switzerland.
Best to check things like house rules before moving in anywhere. Also, try to ascertain the character of the block. If it's full of old people, don't even think about moving in.
Generally, the more foreigners the better as they tend to be a lot more tolerant. Also, modern apartments tend to be have much better noise isolation. The older stock from the 50s to 70s is awful - paper thin walls and floors. I could hear neighbours in adjoining rooms cough in my old apartment.
Yep - wouldn't want to miss those lovely churchbells. Multiple 'clangs' every hour (one for each hour) and chimes every quarter hour (one for each quarter hour) and all through the night too ... Just in case you're in your bedroom at 4.45am wondering what time it is but don't want to disturb the neighbours by switching on the light to look at your clock.
Even better, a nice long bell ringing session at 8.45am every Sunday lasting a quarter of an hour. Just in case you might sleep in and miss getting up for church
They must be loud if you can hear them in Belfast...
dave
I'll always have fond memories of those Swiss bells that plagued my summer nights when the room temp was running at 24C and I couldn't open my bedroom window without experiencing an industrial-scale '15 min snooze alarm'.
Competing synchopated churches in the city are the worst. Its farcical.
dave
Sorry! Hopefully you will have a much better time than we are, I think most expats do otherwise nobody would come here.
Our neighbours are practically invisible, I only ever see their cars in the garage, although we do hear noises inside the building. They complain fairly regularly to the landlord about us. My wife's employer rents the apartment and we are only staying there until our house is refurbished. I wouldn't be surprised if all of our neighbours are SVP voters.
we also have some rules: no laundry after 9pm, because water pressure is needed for people to shower.no major noise after 10pm, no cloths visibly set in the balcony, no vacuum cleaning on weekend mornings and some more...all these rules are sticked on the building entrance wall ...
but...the way me and my house mates do it is...our way...and if we get complaints we apologize and talk respectfully and politely...and hope the next time they will not hear it...it is your right to use the utilities in the apartment you pay for!
you have to keep in mind Swiss are correct people, very patient and they appreciate a lot when you apologize and speak with them in German. the discussion can happen again and again, but if it is in "normal" parameters it is ok and the complaints will always come only to you and not to the landlord of tenant of the building...which is ok...
for example we have a lady that likes to complain all the time about everything...she might just knock at the door and say you left newspapers on the stairs, or that the rubber from the washing machine is not perfectly dry because we didn't dry it after we used the machine, so the rubber band will get ruined faster...and that she lived in the building for 25 years and this started to happen just about when you came....we just listen to her, explain we didn't do it, or clean it if it was us...and then everyone is ok...we practices our patience skills and she is more relieved because she got rid of all her complaints and also thinks good about herself cause she "taught the stupid East Europeans" what good life standards really mean
I would recommend being a bit more assertive in your approach. Your tone suggests that your almost apologising for running a tap. But its your call.
dave
OMG! Waschküchenpolizei at its best. I feel truly sorry for you.
First of all it seems that I have been very lucky so far and could use the shower at every time. But i would definitively take a loo whenever I have to take a loo. Sorry this is ridicolous and it seems like they play the game "how-many-silly-rules-will-this-new-UK/US-guy-obey-before-he-flips?"
Just found a note that in Germany the "Nachtruhe" also starts at 10pm, but you are definitively allowed to use the shower and any other rule is illegal.
(Landgericht Köln, Az.: 1 S 304/96).
Switzerland is different. You are allowed to use a electric tooth brush but it is possible that the "Hausordnung" does not allow to take a shower after 10pm.
http://www.ktipp.ch/themen/beitrag/1...nicht_verboten
http://www.ktipp.ch/themen/beitrag/1...uss_nicht_sein
But I do not know if someone was in front of a judge with that. If you have the time, money and ambition to do it, go ahead.
On the other hand I just got a complaint from my landlord here in the US that we (I an my US-roommate) have to be quieter after 10pm.