Washing your balcony with water

Complaints Corner
21
My colleague can only use her Karcher on her balcony when it us raining or her neighbour below complains.

22
I recently rented one from Hornbach (only 20 chf for the day). We are in the ground floor with a very large brick covered garden. The bricks had been covered with sand due to our unfortunate decision to buy our son a sandbox, and the 3 meter concrete retaining walls in the back were covered with years of green mold buildup. No chance for me to clean all that with a brush. The pressure washer worked brilliantly and no one complained.

The next week, my neighbor (Swiss) on the top floor posted a sign that he as well would be pressure washing his rooftop terrace. To my knowledge, no one complained, although next year I will try to coordinate my washing AFTER his. He mentioned in passing that his rental contract states that he is to do this once per year.

23
We have granite patios both front and back. The back one faces North and stays pretty clean. But the south-facing one accumulates moss and needs cleaning about twice a year, so we decided to buy a pressure washer.

Our top-floor neighbor asked to borrow our pressure washer, which we were happy to loan. The neighbor directly below her, who has a glass-enclosed balcony, then borrowed it to clean up the mess resulting from the top-floor cleaning. The ones below them (just above us) didn't need to use it as the mess from the glass-enclosed balcony didn't cause any problems for them as it all went into the drainage system installed at the same time as the glass enclosure.

24
A Karcher is massive overkill for a balcony, I'd never have used one when I lived above or across from someone else. We now use one for our driveway and terraces and while it works like a dream, it also sprays the dirt all over the place.

25
Thanks all.

Let me clarify something. The neighbour complained about my power washer before I had even used it.

As mentioned there are no cars below my flat itself, nor directly below the outflow pipes of the balcony. The cars are abour 3 to 4 meters away. Far from any spray seeing as I power-hose (or use a normal hose) on the floors and there is a wall all the way round the balcony. So any spray ricoche-ing of the floor is blocked by the wall.

I use the karcher about twice a year; after winter to get rid of all the crud which accumulates during winter and in mid-summer (moss, etc...). What I do though is hose my balcony down every now and again. I have plants and sometimes there is a bit of soil on the floor or it gets dusty, being on the last floor.

Also, much like Capacitrix I also get moss and other green things on the walls of the balcony (which are always in the shade), this is on the inside the wall that surrounds the balcony. Comes off with the power-hose...

I am also not going to vacuum clean my balcony. Vacuum cleaners are for the house, not outside spaces. :-)

Re concrete, not a problem. My balcony is tiled.

I think reasonable use of the Karcher and hose-pipe is acceptable.

I have drawn up a lits of issues with "my complaining neighbour" which I have emailed to the management company. If people cannot be reasonable I can also become petty.

26
Ahaha isn't it refreshing that we have a post about a 'furiner' who wants to be cleaner than the Swiss. Hurrah

Petty + more petty = misery. Imho not the way to go about it- but each to their own.

27
Odile, I agree with you. One must chose which battles to fight. I let a lot of things slide, because there's no point arguing about everything. Life is too short to take eveyrthing seriously.

But faced with this inflexibility I wish to make a point. If they want to be petty so will I.

There is no other way about other than me saying what they do and vacuum my balcony. lol

28
He could be obsessively cleaning his balcony due to a lack of tea and cake. Why not invite him down for tea and cake? Who knows, it could be the start of a great friendship.

29
Adrianlondon, your neighbour can come see my neighbour. Sure they will get on just swell!

30
Okay, when I first moved in to my appartment, I was new to appartment living, and used to wack a bucket of water over to give it a nice rince. Anyway, I soon realised, oh shit... underneath me. Anyway the woman that lives there is a complete psycho clean freak and was not happy at all about all that water going on to her lovely patio.

So, of course I saw the error of my ways. I don't even both using soap... why pollute nature just to have something clean which doesn't really need to be anyway? Outside floor is meant to be a bit dirty - just wait for some more april showers, grab your brush do a bit of scrubing and then let nature do the work for you.

31
I park my car on the street, and I think my car is even more than 3 to 4 meters away from your balcony (seeing that you live nowhere near Basel), but now I know the reason why I need to wash my car every few weeks! Your sprayer must have some super power.

Apartment living can be so hard sometimes. I think everyone who lives in an apartment has to make sacrifices in order to deal with the others in the building. This seems like a simple one....by the way, why does the person care if all the cars are getting dirty anyway? Does he own a fleet of cars?