Many shared facilities I have seen require payment to use. Maybe if you push for that change it will reduce usage if you end up paying a premium to use the common facilities.
1 Like
Okay, thanks. Will try to raise it with the management company.
Communal stuff, by its very nature, can be used by anyone as they please (subject to the pertinent usage rules and regulations of course).
How on earth does your decision not to use the communal washing machine convey the demand on everybody else to do likewise???
You must be fun to live next to.
Exactly.
Before you go off with guns a-blazin’, it would be wise to do the math to determine if this is a fight worth taking on.
I say this from experience. I live in a Quartier where the houses share a garage. We all split the garage expenses. One owner started nitpicking the use of our car washing facilities, claiming that those washing more often should pay more of the expenses. It became such a bun fight that the owners as a group decided the only solution was to hire professional management to deal with the accounting and aggravation.
Cost of professional management to mollify the nitpicking owner: about 2K per owner per year. Cost of the extra water and electricity that got the nitpicker into such a snit: less than CHF10 per owner per year.
There’s the principle of the thing, and then there’s making a stunning own goal.
6 Likes
Wow, garage with a private car wash? Never heard of it being allowed in residential buildings.
As to your suggestion, there is no way to do calculate it as there is no separate meter for the laundry room.
No, no fun at all. Especially for freeloaders, busy-bodies and want-to-stick-my-nose-everywhere types.
At the first building my OH lived in, the basement laundry room had a meter that you had to feed with a supply of half francs. When I moved across here after he found a bigger apartment, we were given 2 big keys in different colours you had to put in the meter so your share of the electricity was recorded. Our current apartment came with a washtower in a hall cupboard, but there is a communal drying room with a huge fan unit for all to use in the basement, I dry bath sheets down there and items that aren’t suitable for the dryer.
1 Like
The electricity cost of modern machines is very low, not sure how many apartments but likely to be less than 1 chf each a month.
3 Likes
May i propose a potential low-tech solution?
the laundry room probably has it’s own circuit with a fuse. Remove (disable) the fuse and accelerate the ’ discovery and solution conversation’?
Yeah, thanks, thought of it as a potential back up plan, in case the ‘Verwaltung’ route leads me nowhere (which is highly likely)
It is now quite common for flats to have both a communal room and private washers in each flat. Normally the communal ones are operated with a meter system so everyone pays for the electricity they use. This appears to missing in you case so the first thing would be to ask for it. Naturally you will have to pay towards the costs of installing such a system. You do not know the reason why some people choose to use the communal one. Some times the communal dryer is better or there is a drying room which is arguably better for the clothes than using a tumble dryer. You are jumping to conclusions as to the motives of the people concerned and if they are just trying to save money, well, that is their right. I would tread carefully.
3 Likes
Well, firstly I do know since I have been living next to them for 3+ years, attending STW meetings and social events. As to whether they have a right, opinions differ as comments on this thread suggest.
in the building where i used to live, there was a card system - each flat had a card with a chip, which activated the electricity of the washer & dryer, and teh cost was associated to each individual flat.
the washer is not the problem.. they are pretty efficient… yet,.the dryer is!
1 Like
Yeah at my rental flat it was the same - 1 CHF to wash, 20 rappen (multiple coins) - to dry. Here it’s different. I don’t know why that laundry room was built at all since each flat came with all standard equipment included, perhaps as a backup for people whose washer or dryer broke down? But apparently some residents saw it as a road to great savings.
I suddenly realised that it is Friday.
8 Likes
I never realized before how ‘sparsam’ are Germans… 
1 Like
The property management may remove all washing machines and charge management fees to all the apartments of course. Problem solved. Or send a very strong worded letter threatening to watch the situation very carefully and naturally charge management fees.
We have a card system. One puts money on the card and uses that.
so why have a basement laundry? Contact the owners/management.
TBH I don’t get why this is such a big deal, my life is too short.
3 Likes
Text down is step 1.
Then text up to escalate.