after 22h one cannot take a shower in [Switzerland]?

Complaints Corner
141
The key is indeed the kind of noise not the volume. Church bells, for instance, are loud but they are judged to produce harmonious sounds that residents should be able to enjoy after 10 and through the night, whereas the muffled sound of a can being thrown into a container is a definite nuisance to Swiss ears, hence the current regulations.

142
Hi

I would like to have some advise on problem faced by me ;

My neighbour upstairs regularly takes shower after 12.00 in the midnight!!On top that there is a loud sound of his home theater which goes on up to 1.30 almost for 3-4 days in a week!!And the height is they bang their furniture,doors and what not to the extent that I get up from a sound sleep wondering what has happened!!

I complaint to my landlord and they said that due to the present late night culture it is o k to take shower at what ever time one wish and on my other complaint of loud sound of TV/music and banging of furniture they will request the person to be more considerate!!After that for some day the noise level of tv/music and banging of furniture was lowered(but not taking shower though!) it has again started.

I have some questions :

1. Is there any rules where I can refer which says that taking shower after 10 pm is not allowed?

2. Even after my landlord informing neighbour to be considerate, what do I do to convey my neighbour/landlord that the noise level is still high?

3. If I was the culprit doing this, as a expat, would this consideration/leniency would have been shown to me??!!

I am not so eager to get reply to my 3rd question but definitely would like to have suggestions for the first two.

Thanks in advance!

143
1) to take showers is in reality accepted for 24 hours per day, unless you are in a small town or a village which has a local legislation to the contrary

2) if the noise stops before 2am and is not what local police (again different in some places where the fox and hares bid goodnight) would regard as intentional harassmant, you can forget it. Try to talk with your neighbours

3) whether the folks in question are CH-citizens or foreigners does not matter. That Mr Caramba (not his real name) moves furniture around at midnight and hammers late at night and on Sunday does not matter and whether he beside his Spanish citizenship also has CH-citizenship or not does not matter either

144
Excuse me, but when have you last dealt with such a situation? Like in the bunker thread, your information is inaccurate.

SNP1, you can get some advise in the threads linked here: Noisy Neighbour

145
The central problem is that things vary from one place to the other. But even in relatively strict Adliswil with a very strict house manager, I never met a restriction in regard to showers, not in the City of Zurich (Wollishofen) nor in Adliswil and even less in Glattbrugg. As the house manager in Adliswil told me "after 10pm please abstain from taking a full bath, but taking a short shower is acceptable". And while that man would have rushed into action would anyone have hammered around at night or on Sunday, this is quite common place in the apartment building in Glattbrugg where I am now.

In case of any such problem, before trying to get legal, you ought to talk with the house administration, other neighbours (usually also sources of reality based infos), offices of the municipal administration and of course the "noise-makers" directly. Just to give another example. While in Zurich and Adliswil you combine cardbox and paper for a combined disposal, they in Glattbrugg have to be strictly separated.

146
No Showers after 10pm? I was so afraid of this before we moved to Switzerland, and heard some horror stories. Well, we have been here for over a year now, and often take showers after 10 or even 11pm, especially on weekends when we come home late and had a 10 hour hike in the mountains. There are 4 apartments in our building, and except for us, everyone are older than 70. We are the only ones renting, the others purchased their apartment long ago. The old man living downstairs have never complained once, I do not know why not. He must hear us, because I can hear him when he uses the bathroom. I think it is because he has a girlfriend and looks very happy, so nothing bothers him at the moment. I just hope she stays his girlfriend forever, and keeps him happy. Our other neighbours will never complain to us, even when we irritate them. I invite them for coffee, sometimes dinner, and bring them cookies.

Swiss people might seem grumpy, unfriendly and rude at first, but when you get to know them better, be nice to them, invite them over, they are usually not so bad. Even the elderly.

Also, each of us has his own laundry room with own washer and dryer. I washed on a Sunday a couple of times already, no one complained.

Maybe they think - poor woman, she has so much work she even has to do laundry on a Sunday....he he. Well, in the meantime I pray for things to stay the way they are. It can be very different I think.

147
The escalation route is the same everywhere and available everywhere. There are many examples on EF of users who succesfully approached their neighbours (and I agree that this is the first one should try) and others who had to escalate it to the landlord or even police.

What's different in each house are the house rules, the neighbours and the sound insulation. My appartment is somewhere in the middle, at a friend of mine you think the Niagara Falls are in the wall when a neighbour takes a shower. And in such cases where bathroom use more likely is included in the house rules, approaching the neighbour is fully justified. If he works late shifts then it's a different thing but if it's just a habit, maybe he isn't even aware of the noise he causes in the bathroom.

Now I'm all in favour of neighbourly tolerance and considerateness but if my neighbour starts hammering at midnight, I'll ring his doorbell in five minutes and so would most others, I think this example of yours was an exaggeration.

148
In many ( if not all buildings ) it is forbidden to produce noise after around 10pm.

In many contracts and building rules, it is specifically forbidden to take showers or even flush the toilets during the night.

So, your neighbor was on his right to complain.

Your rights end where the rights of your neighbor begin.

149
10 minutes for a shower is very long. Some things to be considered are

- keep the shower at below 4 minutes

- limit the water "escape" by half closing it

-----

and in regard to the toilet, do not flush many times but only once after having gone to it

150

4 minutes for a shower?

Do you have any idea what a female needs to DO in the shower? Just washing my hair takes more than 4 minutes!

10 minutes is "do-able" if I don't see to the "grooming" aspect of showering and am simply interested in the "cleaning" aspect of the shower.

So far as the questioner... Amy.

I realize you've stated your grasp of French is limited, perhaps you can bring some cake or something to your neighbor by way of apology and see if you can work out a bit of communication to explain.

I'd think that *anyone* would understand a person's desire to get clean upon arriving home from travels.

151
> Isn't 4 minutes enough ?

and again, you might check up your facility and find out what really is disturbing for the neighbour.

152
Oh dear god I'm worried. I hope we can afford to rent a house because we are sooo not suited for apartment living.

We have two excitable preschoolers, I like to holler when I'm ignored by them, I like to get all the washing and hoovering done on the weekends (cos I'm not working!) and we live in a detached rural house where the neighbours are all bonkers and noise isn't a problem.

We're on tank water with septic tank so don't always flush the toilet. But sometimes it REALLLLY does need to be flushed. Poo fumes can be sooo much worse than the gurgling of the flush.

153
Hi. You will find that most people don't have problems with any ancient rules such as not being able to flush the toilet after 10. It is only a minority which seem to experience this. Usually it is because they live in an old building and the plumbing is knackered and a loo-flush is akin to someone opening a dam so it is understandable that they want to keep this to a minimum in the night.

Remember: Nobody is going to post a thread to this forum saying "hey, I can flush my toilet at night", are they? So you are only going to read about people having problems.

Look for modern buildings if you are thinking of moving here.

Our apartment building is filled with nice people (Swiss and expat) and nobody gives a flying fandango if you flush your toilet at 4 am or do your washing at 7 am on a Sunday morning. You might find people a little more stodgy out in the sticks but the cities seem to be more relaxed regarding these rules.

154
A) I never met anybody saying that you could not flush the toilet after 10pm. And there has never been any such rule, never. And my grandmother, born in 1882, never had any such ideas.

B) Old buildings by average are far better in regard to noise than far newer ones. The apartment building I live in now is about the same age as the one I lived in between 2002 and early this year, but is far better in this regard. Comparable to the building(s) I lived in before 2002 . And that co-operative compound dated from 1928 .

155
My experience is quite good. Our landlords live directly below us and they are well into their sixties. They are quite old-school. He is originally from Germany and she is from the Ukraine. I have been trying to play by the rules but when we have houseguests from the US who don't understand and find it impossible to comply, it can get very noisy, i.e. toilet flushing, laundry, noise, etc.

I have apologized to our landlady and she has quite clearly told me on quite a few occasions that we "have the right to live" and no apology is necessary. I think all others who read this and are terrified by the supposed Swiss rules need to realize that horror stories are posted here by a 10 to 1 margin over "good stories".

Really it comes down to neighborliness, good manners and common sense and those should recognize no boundaries, right?

156
Is it just me or did all the nutters you could end up with as neighbors end up in the German part of CH?

157
well, let's understand there is a difference here in switzerland regarding "good noise" and "bad noise" . flushing or showering after 10 pm or mowing the lawn on sunday is a "bad" noise. firing rounds of rifle shots on the firing range at 7 am on sunday, for the swiss soldiers which can be heard all over the village is a "good" noise. washing you car with a bucket and sponge and garden hose, on the side of the road, makes no noise, but is also forbidden. but for special occasions, once a year you can get a noise permit at the local police station.

158
Me neither but it doesn't mean it doesn't go on, does it?

Spend a night at the apartment block of my sister-in-law. She lives in an ancient property in the Enge area and their plumbing could probably be valued by a good antiques dealer.

The noise from that clanking old contraption is quite breathtaking. It still works a treat so their landlord won't even entertain the idea of changing it.

159
No, it does not go on, as it never did. I possibly in the past 6 years would have preferred the ancient plumbing in the block of your sister-in-law as she possibly was not wakened up by the alarm-clock of the neighbour each morning. This is what the house-manager there told me about. "If you have been on the toilet, close it and then flush heavily but shortly" "If you are using the showers, just use as much water as you really need, and keep the whole thing to less than 10 minutes during night-time, as the whole house can hear it" . The man, already in his late 70ies, would have preferred an older house, but had to deal with how it was.

160
Im currently in a serviced apt, so i guess its a bit different but, people do there washing, drying 24 x 7, im up at 4am some weeks ( IT for ya ) and dryers in basement are going full blast.

I also have a shower at 4am, not one complaint in 9 months...

Move into an apt soon, god help me if i have neighbours from hell lol

I love Switzerland but some rules are just a joke, who goes to bed at 10pm anyway - these people need to get out more lol

How do they stop kids screaming and dogs barking... ???

Oh and still no smoking ban, tut tut - hehe