Any hints. Is the apartment in Langstrasse?
I don't think it's very fair to say the people who work as letting agents in Switzerland have a low level of intelligence and competence. In 5 years of renting here we've only had a problem with one agent, it was someone who hadn't put the date of a viewing in their diary and therefore didn't turn up to let prospective tenants into the property. We were all given another date a week later and the same person was a no show again so we just decided not to apply for anything else with that agency. Everyone else we have dealt with has been very professional and helpful, however I have heard complaints about Livit in Basel not getting repairs done for tenants prior to them moving in and tenants having problems afterwards. They advertise some very nice apartments in Basel, but their reputation put me off dealing with them.
I think it's odd the agent wanted to go through the apartment alone, this would have made me suspicious. At mine, it was the agent, previous tenant, and me. The agent noticed one of the window frames was dirty, but like the kind of dirty that was practically impossible to remove. He asked me if I was ok with it or if I wanted the tenant to clean it better. So in my situation we all seemed to be on the same page. I'd also contact the Mietverband.
Yes. The real estate agents are usually arseholes. There's one called Trump trying to run the USA! He's the number one arsehole
I wonder are these clicks common for Swiss apartments? In my previous apartment I had loud clicks late in the evening somewhere in the bathroom area. Now we are renting a house and on the colder days there are clicks very early in the morning (when the heating is turned on again) coming from the ceiling near our bedroom on the top floor although the gas heater is located two floors below. I cannot understand what are these clicks and why they are coming from such strange locations?
Yes. The old apartments have this clunk. Its a Swiss thing and they will never fix it