Apartment living

Apartment living
As a young girl I lived on a farm in Windsor. From there the family moved to Gulgong where I lived in town. Gulgong is a sleepy little town, our home had a huge back yard and we barely saw our neighbours. Over the years with a marriage then divorce I had moved several times but always to a house with a substantial yard. I thought moving to Kings Langley and living in a semi detached home would be difficult although it was easy with the neighbours being quiet as was the street.

Now married and following my husband I find myself in an apartment in Switzerland. We chose an apartment because the houses here to rent are very, very expensive. We found an attractive modern apartment with a huge balcony that overlooks a busy noisy road. Double glazed windows drown out all outside noise. Three bedrooms, three toilets, two bathrooms, a large lounge living area with a five minute walk to the lake and railway. The shops just a stones throw away. This place looks great, we move in all excited with our first floor find. It was the beginning of winter so the windows were kept shut. From the first night and for most nights after we heard the sound of moving furniture in the upstairs apartment that causes us distress and annoyance. We first thought they were just moving in but now realise they clean or play musical chairs on the hard floor covering, we still don’t know what they do.

No one seems to have well behaved dogs. Dogs also live in the apartments (but not ours). I find it difficult to share a small lift with unruly dogs. The American lady with two small white poodles can’t stop her dogs from barking, boy is she fun to meet in the echoing foyer. You can hear the dogs bark through the night and you have to wonder why you would bring a dog to an apartment. The owners are up first thing to take their canine for a walk. The first little bit of grass outside our building is where they do their morning wee and poo (the dogs of course). They do pick up the poo in a doggy doo bag (the owners) but the wee kills the grass and other dogs stain the walls and steps (by peeing also). I am grateful that our superintendent regularly hoses the forecourt down.

Being on the first level I very rarely take the lift instead taking the 23 stairs where I often pick up lolly wrappers from the children who could not be bothered to wait for a bin. I swear if I ever catch them in the act I will read them the riot act in English. I am sure they will understand the universal language of anger. We often get people wanting us to buzz them into the building as the building’s front door has a security code….. I have difficulty understanding when they speak to me over the mike in French. We also have the children that just play pranks and press the button and run off, they also do it inside the building pressing the front door buzzer so when I open it no one is there. Children will be children.

Our apartment building of 5 levels is surrounded by other large apartment buildings all about seven stories high. I always wondered why our apartment gets so dusty. Every day I have to mop the floor and dust the furniture being surprised at the amount of new dust. A few weeks back I needed to clean the window in one of the spare bedrooms of bird droppings. The birds like to roost above the shutters and do there thing. So here I sat on the window ledge leaning out as far as I could with an extension for my squeegee. While cleaning I noticed a lady in the apartment opposite on one of the higher floors, shake her vacuum cleaning bag out of her window. I hoped this is not the reason our apartment gets so dusty god knows what they do above us.

Our balcony is the largest as we are the first floor, the problem being that some of the above floors have flowers hanging from their balcony rails.

Why does it always rain on me? Looking up I realised it was water from the pots above. All the petals and leaves fall on our balcony as well so I am forever sweeping the balcony and watching above for any unexpected showers. When John and I venture out to the balcony on these long twilight evenings we sit well back near our wall under the protection of the awning to avoid the “heavenly downpours and only have to contend with the traffic noise.

From our balcony we overlook the busy road with a set of traffic lights, as we sit outside we watch the traffic (what else can we do). Traffic is noisy but the big motorbikes and car horns can be extremely loud and often have us retreating back indoors before we have even finished our drink. We always avoid going out on a Saturday as that is when wedding cars go by tooting constantly, a popular practice here in Switzerland.

Our bedrooms are on the other side of the building overlooking the complexes entrance. As it is getting rather hot and we are not allowed air conditioning we sleep with the bedroom window open. We hear the late home comers with their boompity boom music radiating from their cars and wish they would get out of the vehicle much quicker. We hear the occasional ambulance or police car sirens and the rowdy gathering outside the main entrance, who like to chat, smoke and laugh for hours under our window. Often we wake up after a reasonable night with the smell of cigarette smoke in our room.
So now with the possibility of moving back to Australia, John asks me “what sort of place would you like to live in”. One thing for sure…… not a bloody apartment!