Nah, that is, and my 'merican wife be my witness, actually progress. You need very fine down feathers though. Expensiv, but worth it. You can use them in Summer & Winter. Trust me. We do it all the time. Or come and check it out.
'merican maids can never figure out the changing of the puff covers, that’s why it’s my job. I can change them in 30 sec. We even found king size puff covers by Ralph Lauren. German oddities in American high style.
B.O., you’re great! Glad to meet you!
I lived in England for a year and didn’t have screens either but also had few bugs. The only drawback was that the cat could escape any time she wanted; at least here the cat is deterred by the screens. I realize this is not a deterrent to a Golden. The attention paid to drawing the curtains and opening them again was a ritual that I never quite got the hang of. I am rarely naked in the kitchen so why should I draw the drapes at 7PM? And when I am naked in the kitchen, I usually don’t care or have the sanity to draw the drapes.
No closets in England either, just a line of cabinets along the wall that take up room and are generally unattractive and impractical.
My other experience in living abroad was in Petaling Jaya, Malaysia, where no one had screens. Oddly, there were no bugs in the city but there were small monkeys that occasionally showed up, stealing anything that wasn’t bolted down. Go figure.
In the Bay Area (where I was born and raised) some houses had screens, other didn’t; some rooms had screens, others didn’t. In Sacramento where I now live, every room has screens because we do have bugs, not outrageously, but enough to keep you swatting during our hot miserable summers.
Welcome on board B.O; I lived in Germany for twelve years myself and can identify with your portrayal of heavy-handed regulation and incomprehesible beauraucracy. The whole Kitchen thing is amazing.
Many apartments you look at have a requirement that you take over the existing kitchen, for a pretty substantial lump sum or you can’t have the appartment. Why? Because the previous tenant’s contract states that he has to find the next tenant, not the landlord, so he gets to do things like that.
I have to say the windows are pretty good though, double and triple glazing and soundproofing as standard in new places. As far as the OP goes, my experience re the lack of screens is that they don’t have much of an insect problem in most places, and the good, hot weather doesn’t last very long. Compared to the windows in my first place in England, where I could watch a lit candle be extinguished by the wind coming through a sealed window, where I had a gas fire and hot water heater that ran on a meter which had to be fed with small-denomination coins, and where the olive oil in my kitchen froze solid one fine February day.
Completely of the OP, my last place in Germany came with a bin in the kitchen that had seperate compartments for glass, metals, plastics, paper and compost. That’s great if you don’t want to dispose of more than one teabag a day…
When we lived in Bad Soden, my wife came outside one day without remembering to remove her key from the door. I had my key. The door locked behind her. Since the lock is not deep enough to accomodate a key on the outside and a key on the inside, we could not use my key to get back inside. Could not break into the house. Cost us DEM 600, at the time about $350 US, to get back inside the house. The locksmith had to drill out the locks. Sheesh.
Shibb:
Yes, it actually is progress, and it speaks (now that I get off the bitching stage - not everything from Germany is bad, man, I’m Made in Germany …) it speaks for the quality of German locks. German and Swiss locks and keys can be a piece of art. Your lock in Bad Soden (a place for the more affluent) was built so that the key cannot be pushed out from the outside. It was designed that way. It’s not a matter of how deep the lock is. It has only one set of those - what do they call the thingies in a cylinder? Tumblers? It’s a matter of being able to push the key out or not. And this lock was designed to resist your attempts of dislodging the key on the inside. It takes some engineering, and you pay for it, in your case several times.
My expertise is not locks. But when I moved to NYC, where the consensus appears to be that you need at least 5 at the door, I had interactions with a locksmith. He saw my keying where I have keys to the German apartment and office. He was enthralled. The keys were nothing he’s ever seen before. He absolutely needed to have the cylinders that go with these keys. I warned him that - knowing how things are - they probably will be the wrong size and stuff, but he said: “Let this be my problem. I absolutely need those cylinders.” Next time in Germany, I went to the locksmith and bought some of the more exotic specimens. It turned out to be an expensive present (could have bought a nice watch for it), but my NYC locksmith was in heaven, became my friend forever, and he never again charged me for his time, and for quite a while, not even for materials.
The DM 600 re-entry fee for the house is a bit steep. Probably included a new cylinder (expensive) and a new set of keys. Because those locks are so impenetrable, and because doorknobs are more common now, and because the door tends to fall into the lock before you can say “!”§$%, where are my keys???" the re-entry business is thriving and it can be a racket. Even a much simpler job than yours will deplete you of funds at an alarming rate. It can easily cost you $100 to get back into your abode, even if it’s just a 5 second job, performed with specialized equipment only accessible to the guild of licensed locksmiths and thieves (I watched the guy in awe, went inside, established my credentials, and paid).
They may be blockheaded, but they aren’t stupid. You are a - so to speak - “captive audience.” Caught on the outside, wanting in.
PS: What are the "§$% rules here? Do I need to say "§$% (connoisseurs will note the German layout of the keyboard) or can I spell it out? Fuck, I don’t care, I do what’s required, my German genes simply yearn for guidance and for a clearly defined environment.
B.O., part of the DM 600 was the weekend charge, of course this wouldn’t happen during a weekday between 900 and 1500 hours. And yes, Bad Soden was rather, um, gentrified. It was a corporate apartment and very nice. Of course we didn’t have anything worth stealing inside, but nobody else could know that.
As other have said, welcome to the boards. Try to keep the invective to a minimum outside the Pit threads, there are young 'uns around, but the occasional “fargle that” will probably slip by.
[sub]for more info look through About This Message Board[/sub]
Moonshine:
It may look that way, but it’s a bit more complex. Again, there is a law. (In Germany, there is a law for each and everything, which keeps contracts short and sweet. If the contract is contrary to the law, the pertinent part will be treated as not written.) According to German tenant/landlord law, you rent an apartment for the period set forth in the contract. Within that period, landlord cannot raise your rent or bother you otherwise. You usually have to perform certain duties, such as painting the rooms after a certain period, and the kitchen more often (forget that the kitchen will be demolished – it needs to be painted). It needs to be done “professionally” and if you don’t have the receipts to show, this may become an issue when you move out and you forfeit your deposit. (In some cases, the duties also may entail sweeping the hallway and the sidewalk on a round-robin basis, but landlords more and more drift to the more modern concept of handing the dirty work to a professional and putting it on your monthly fee.)
The law is a bit lopsided: If you want to stay beyond the contractual period, you simply sit tight, and the contract will extend automatically. The landlord cannot terminate you after the contractual period. Landlord can raise your rent, but if he doesn’t do it according to yet another law, you can ignore him. Simply writing a letter that you disagree suffices. Landlord will go to his lawyer, lawyer will tell him "“How often did I tell you to leave these matter to me?” And the process will start again. They have to prove that the rents all around you have risen, or that significant improvements have been performed on the house. Eventually, if you resist, the landlord will kick you out, claiming that he needs the apartment for his prematurely pregnant daughter – claiming “Eigenbedarf” (owner’s need to occupy said living space) is pretty much the only way they can get you out at the end of the contract. You can challenge it all, and it takes time to get your day in court, and the judge will try to ease his workload by yelling at both landlord and tenant before calling a recess. (He will have his breakfast, you will settle in the hallway. Nothing makes a judge happier than a good breakfast followed by a “We have come to a mutually agreeable conclusion.”)) Everybody is careful about drawn-out lawsuits, because in Germany, losing party pays the winning party’s legal cost ( a simple rule to keep down frivolous lawsuits).
Anyway, I digress. Usually, the renter’s desire to move doesn’t coincide with the end of his contract. In that case, all the renter has to do is present the landlord with three "suitable” people who are willing to move into the apartment. And then he can pack up and move. The landlord will challenge the suitability, but again, it will usually only result in losing your deposit, which you would lose anyway, because you didn’t paint the kitchen, or you have lost the receipt. If it was painted, it was done by someone of non-German extraction on a weekend anyway, and for cash.
Now, the rest is up to the immutable law of supply and demand. The previous renter of course wants to recoup his investment in built-ins such as kitchen and otherwise, and he will ask for a sum of money, oddly called “Abstand” (“distance” – I don’t have the vaguest idea). In a situation of high demand and tight supply, this sum will be exorbitant, and the previous renter will insist, because it’s in his hands who he will present to his landlord, or not. In a situation of high demand, the sum may have no relationship at all to the value changing hands, it’s a disguise for the renter selling a contract he cannot fulfill. Don’t worry, you will get a brand new contract at a higher rate – trust me on that. If demand is low, the previous tenant will remove or destroy the built-ins (because he has to deliver the unit as rented originally) , or he will throw it in to entice you to take the place he wants to get out of.
More often than not, even after you have finished your complex dealings with the previous tenant, the ordeal is not over. You are one out of three, maybe one out of 10 or 20 which the previous tenant presented to the landlord for good measure.
But despite Germans being known as sticklers for the law, it doesn’t need to be taken absolutely seriously. In a non-controversial situation, the landlord will be happy with only one suitable tenant, if he’s serious, and if he moves in the day you move out and if it doesn’t result in the apartment being empty and not collecting rent.
In the end it comes down to the worldwide accepted principle of money. And once you are in, you’re in, and the law will start working for you. After all, it’s for the protection of the people. People with apartments, not vagrants.
Proposal for next thread: “Why Germans don’t walk on the red man, even at 3 in the morning with no traffic in sight. Or: Joys and perils of jaywalking - a worldwide review.”
Shibb:
Ah, the infamous weekend charge. If it included a new lock, your treatment wasn’t fair, but equal.
Roger the fargle. I can (at lest temporarily) live without invectives. I don’t have kids (want to keep my own toys), but I have a cute set of nieces and nephews (both sides of the pond) and the American side watches the Comedy Channel, The Sopranos and the occasional Sex in the City on DirecTV … In front of their parents, they behave as if they don’t know, but it takes a lot more to shock them.
(I always wanted to write for The Sopranos. Great job: Half of the lines are already written.)
And thank y’all for the warm welcome. It was Squeegee who turned me on to this weird and wonderful place. If I misbehave, complain to him. He’s my guardian. And sometimes, in certain matters, my guardian angel.
Pit thread? Hmm. How interesting. In a vague attempt to stay OT, I mention that Germany now enacted sweeping laws against Pit Bulls and other attack dogs (What’s the matter with them? They used to love dogs more than their children.)
In some German states, you even must (and I’m not making this up) implant a chip into your dog to identify you as the (ir)responsible owner, requiring not more than a sweep with the electronic chip-in-dog-probe after your pet maimed half of the community, including choice pieces of livestock.
Anyway, I’m off to visit the pit threads. In SDMB terms, I’m barely a day old, so could someone please recommend the juiciest pit threads? Or are the threads called the pits, because they are? I’m just a Straight Dope babe. Help!
B.O:
The ‘Pit’ threads are the B.B.Q. Pit, suitable for cussing and abuse.
FWIW I’d heard of (and once witnessed) the scene of Germans not crossing against a light. Ever. Even in the middle of the night, no traffic for miles. These folks are regimented like crazy.
Well, given that they have lots of red-light cameras and such, it might not just be a matter of regimentation. They are very well ordered which is somewhat refreshing, to a point, compared to our “go to hell, I’ll do what I want” individualistic society.
On the other hand, they do place quite a bit on personal responsibility. None of this “Well, I’m an idiot, so you can’t blame me” type of thinking. Running out of gas on the autobahn (their version of Interstate Highways) can net you a fine. You’ll not see broken down cars by the side of the road, as it is a serious hazard.
[delurk]
No, its the other way around. “They” love their children more than their dogs.Those laws were enacted last year after a wave of attack dogs brutally killed several children.The laws were very disputed and widly discussed in german public.The laws about those races of dogs vary (afaik) from state to state concerning races and methods to stop the eventually of future attacks. In most states its mandatory for certain races to wear muzzles ( *ehh,is that the right term ? Got it from http://translator.dictionary.com/fcgi/translate , the german word is “Maulkorb” *)in public.
Not the baddest idea,imho. Some politicians wanted to ban the breeding of certain races and to kill living examples of the same, but those wishes have not been fulfilled, massive protests stopped those plans. Dont know about if certain races are actually banned or if so, which are. But no massive executions of dogs occured.
?Uhhhhhhh ?
Cite please ?
And btw, it would be nice to see a bit less of generalizations (not to say lies) in this thread, remember “fighting the ignorance” and so on ? (welcome to “ze” board again, B.O. 
.
Jeez I´m checking this whole thread again, other posters with higher blood-pressure than myself might have started a Pit thread over all this )
Thank you
oh yeah and about the (absence of ) screen windows ,we are talking about a kind of permanent kind of mosquito nets,right ?
There are those kinds of mosquito nets available in Germany which you simply attach to your window, and bingo, no more bloodsuckers.
But as micco said, i guess its a climate thing.
[/delurk]
Reverend:
I see, I’m advancing fast in this new territory. Barely a day old, and I’m already being flamed. In other places, once has to work on that for years. Thank you Reverend, much appreciated. Much obliged.
In the Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction Dept., here are some links. For understandable reasons, they are all in German.
The on-line translation machines are a bit unreliable, therefore, I simply recommend to watch for the keywords “Kampfhund” (attack dog - generic term for Pit Bulls, Mastiffs, Dobermans etc.), “Kampfhundeverordnung” (attack dog law), “elektronisches Chip” (electronic chip - this was easy), “kastriert” (castrated),and “sterilisert” (sterilized). The rest should be self evident.
http://de.news.yahoo.com/010830/71/1wv5j.html
http://de.news.yahoo.com/010829/12/1wsc1.html
http://de.news.yahoo.com/010829/12/1wr4a.html
Just three urls of current and pretty recent goings-on.
The first citation talks about the Supreme Court of Rhineland-Palatinate, which yesterday confirmed a law that owners of an attack dog must obtain a license, the dogs must be castrated or sterilized, and marked with an electronic chip.
The second two citations talk about a similar law being challenged at the Administrative Court of the state of Hesse, which - two days ago - struck down parts of it. The court struck down that these dogs are generally dangerous, that they have to be castrated, that they cannot be bought and sold, and that they have to wear a muzzle (yep, Maulkorb is correct) at all times. (The law would have basically treated the dogs as a weapon, ownership of which is verboten in all of Germany. The law would have treated them harsher than drugs, because in most states, you cannot sell, but you can own drugs in small quantities for your personal use.)
Not struck down, was that owners of these dogs have to “prove their reliability” (of the owner, not of the dog), and that the dogs must undergo a test of their disposition (“Wesenstest”). Also not struck down was the part that the dogs must be marked with an electronically readable chip (“elektronisch lesbares Chip”). Because the decision of that court can be appealed, it is not in effect at the moment, and the law stands until a Supreme Court decision.
A not very up-to-date roundup of the laws in each state of Germany is at http://www.brain2000.de/huschu/kampf.html
It’s as of 8/11/2000 - as you can see above, this is a rapidly developing issue, the roundup is not to be taken as the last word.
If you want to stay current, monitor the “Kampfhund News”, published by an “Interest Group of Owners of Large Dogs” at http://www.geocities.com/hundenews/
Treat with caution, they obviously don’t refer to Golden Retrievers or Bernhardines when they talk about “large dogs.”
If you want my personal opinion, this is nuts, and it is another example of a overreaching bureaucracy running amuck. Current laws (liability, second degree murder if necessary) would suffice. I owned a Chow-Chow for 17 happy years. Although not regarded as an attack dog, I received several serious and high offers to buy him. They came from people who looked like pimps or purveyors of controlled substances, and they came after my dog had taught their Pit Bulls and Dobermans the proper behavior on Doggie Hill in Central Park in New York. I always treated him as the Teddy he was, and as the absolutely lethal weapon he could be.
As for generalizations and lies, full disclosure: I own an ad agency. We generalize and lie for a living. And not a bad one, I may add. After 30 years in the business, it’s kinda hard to unlearn, even under orders from a Reverend. Sorry, no change.
Tedster:
Well, they have red-light districts, cameras in red-light districts, and cameras that snap a picture of your car running a red light, summons with picture will be in the mail.
But we are talking jay-walking pedestrians here. No snapping of pictures of jaywalkers. Besides the lack of numbers on the forehead, pictures are not necessary. It’s 3am in the morning. Nobody in the street. Nothing left. Nothing right. And they freeze. And they wait for the “Green Man” (German for “Walk!”). What’s more, they give you a very dirty and angry look if you cross. Maybe I’ve assimilated too fast into Manhattan, where jaywalking is an inalienable right. And where the cops cheer you on and yell “come on, you can do it” if you jaywalk, and a truck comes barreling down the street, and you hesitate, and you don’t know whether you should jump back or continue. When Giuliani ran out of stuff to clean up in NYC, he tried to do away with jaywalking also. He failed. It was the beginning of the end of his career.
Sorry, I meant to say pedestrians, I guess my post wasn’t all that clear.
…And I did personally witness the regimented pedestrians, in both Cologne and Munich. Like B.O said: I walk up to a stop light, it’s very very late at night, no traffic whatsoever, the light is red. There’s a group of people patiently staring at the light to change. Not a car in sight. Nobody even thinks about crossing the street. My wife and I shrug, cross the street, I look back and see several people giving us dirty looks.
I get it. Yes, I noticed the same thing. Here’s a country that thinks nothing of driving 120 MPH faster than prevailing traffic, but looks askance at crossing against the pedestrian light. Hm.
Still, I liked europe in many ways. I’ve travelled extensively around the world, and there’s something to be said about an ordered society. Maybe they’ve just read too much Kantian philosophy.
I’m really surprised the germans haven’t incorporated a pull-down permananent screen in their spiffy three-way windows, like the Pella windows here in the U.S.
Actually, now that you mention it, the regimented German style was wonderful when I was driving on the Autobahn. I was just in awe:
Everyone drove in the right-most lane available for thier speed. Period. If there was one car on the road going whatever speed, that person drove in the rightmost lane. If there were two, the faster would pass the slower and move right.
Everyone on the road always (and I drove the Bahn for 2 weeks) moved right to let faster cars by. Really. Every time.
And, yes, some of the cars that approached from behind were Porches or whatever traveling 100+ mph. For the most part, even with a couple of dozen vehicles in my sight, the left-most lane (of 3) was clear or one person passing might move right to let the fast car get by.
Perhaps there’s something to be said for regimentation. I was quite impressed. Drivers in the USA could take a clue.
B.O. :
no no, my post was in no way meant as a flame,my apologies if I sounded to harsh.
Thanks for the URLs,thats what i was asking for.I´m very surprised, especially about that electronic chip part, never heard of it and couldn´t think this could be possible (regarding the legality, not the possibility of such technologies),thanks for clearing that up.
I dont want to hijack this thread any further with your information and thoughts about attack dogs,so I wont address your arguments here.Great Debates would be appropirate,wouldnt it ?
That part about generalizations wasnt addressed to you especially,but a couple of posters in this thread.We all know how this can easily end in some avoidable Pit threads (not my desired place to waste my time with).
Again,sorry if you felt I attacked you, in no way meant I to do so.
Peace ?
Reverend:
Sure. There never was any war. Easy peaces. Takes much more to get me riled. At least on-line. Now in person, that’s a completely different story …