I have just shifted to my rented apt and requested the rental agent (the one who helped us find the house) to change the Name Plates as they still showed the previous tenant's name.
And she came back saying it would cost between 40 to 60 CHF and its done to maintain the uniformity. Is this the normal practise ? I thought it was a bit expensive... (for two slips of paper)
Also, if this is the normal practise here, then why is it a range of price rather than just one fixed price ? any idea ?
I had to pay about that amount when I moved into my house in Zürich. The names plates were all the same uniform style and size. The price you quote seems a little expensive for a slip of paper though, my tags were engraved plastic jobbies.
I had to pay around 40CHF when I moved in, this was for my mail box, door bell and door engraved metals name tags. I didnt mind paying it because they look neat and saved me the hassel of finding someone to do it.
This is standard practice when renting a new apartment (at least for kanton Zürich). Plastic tags at 40 chf sounds right, with metal ones costing in the 60-70 chf range.
Normally you receive two (mailbox and apartment door) but could also be billed for additional ones for your cellar and on the doorbell at the building entrance.
This should not be a point of complaint. Be glad you HAVE an apartment given the difficulty many people go through in finding one....and as mentioned, it could be worse having to do it yourself.
The cheeky little scamps round our way delight in jabbing randomly at residents' doorbells (particularly hilarious in the early evening when you are trying to get a toddler to sleep or at 4 in the morning when they have sunk a couple of shandies) and knocking off the name plate. Our building's plates get knocked off so often most have been replaced by strips of insulation tape with handwritten names. Classy.
Thats a ridiculous point to make. Its like when parents comment on children not eating their dinner "think of all the starving children in the world".....irrelevant. The fact that someone has an apartment over here in this difficult but not impossible flat hunting market shouldn't mean that when you finally find an apartment you shouldn't complain against ridiculous surcharges for things like name plates on doorbells.
I agree with you DNAMan.. given the difficulty of finding an apartment, this name tag thing is really small stuff... i was just wondering about it because this is the first time i am being charged separately for it.. i have been through a few countries, and was never asked for this as a separate charge... (maybe it was part of the rent or masked as some other charge)
On the other hand, in my apt block, i dont find them to be uniform -- there's a handwritten one too (either way, it serves its purpose )
Shomski its true that its only a small amount but you shouldn't feel like these random small charges are ok to pay as you've finally found an apartment here. Small charges add up in the end and means more landlords will keep doing things like this and screwing tenants out of even more money.
You also have to factor in that they probably charge you for these kinds of things in other countries, too, it's just in Switzerland they itemise every last piddly thing so you see what you are paying for.
Although I do agree with you that you shouldn't feel you have to absorb every landlord's whim because accommodation availability is tight.
I would agree with you to an extent Sandgrounder but i don't think things like name plates are not already covered in the rent you would be paying. I think its just another charge for a little more profit and i'm sure if you had to then people could get two engraved name plates for no more than 20chf.
Either the landlord comes out and installs them or in my case I was handed them and I put them on myself (they involve just too screws and thats it). So nope I don't think any tradesmans fees are included in the 40 - 60 chf
I had my labels for similar money..and they were delivered by post box.I fixed the mail box and my inside door bell, however, the outside door name panel screw was so stiff, I gave up trying to unscrew that to just pop the little plastic.And this is because no one touched the stuff for few years as most lived there for long. Luckily had no complaint, as I had already made slightly different that I can stick..with one of those gadgets that prints stickers..