A Pickle
This evening, I had an appointment to view an apartment. That's how it works here in Switzerland; recent immigrants are always making appointments to view apartments. Why? First: there are no apartments. Well, practically none. According to a recent study, the percentage of apartments which are vacant in Lausanne at this moment is around 0.1%; that's 1 per 1000. Actually, this is an estimate, as the actual number is probably fewer. During the month of June, for example, only 48 people moved into new apartments (in a city of 125,000). How did I find all this information out? Did one of my many Swiss friends warn me about this before I left from the new world? Of course not. I found out about this when I bought a newspaper -- so that I could casually check out the classified ads and really "get going" about an apartment -- and saw the lead headline: "Housing Crisis Becomes Dramatic" (La crise du logement devient dramatique).
Once one appreciates the fact that there are many many people attempting to move into not-so-many apartments, the apartment searching process begins to make some sense. So, you start by checking out the classified ads (les petits anonces) and the internet for listings. Apartments are listed by the number of pièces or roughly "rooms" which means that when comparing to the American system, you take the number of pieces, subtract one and you get the number of bedrooms -- the living room (le séjour) counts as a pièce. Subtract the dinning room, which counts as a pièce, if it exists, and subtract all hope of a decently sized refrigerator or closets and there you go. Thanks to somewhat counter-productive rent control laws, prices tend to be a little bit lower than what you'd expect in a reasonably sized American city. Most of the 2 pièce places I've looked at go for between 1000 and 1200 CHF (Swiss Francs are almost exactly a buck); in the Bay area, they'd probably be about $1200 - $1500.
Once you've accumulated a short (or long) list of potential apartments, your next step is to brush up on your french, swallow your pride, and start making some phone calls. Thanks to one of the many laws that seems only to serve the landed gentry here (more of these later), you will have to call the current renter (le locataire), as it is their responsibility to show it to people until it is taken. Assuming the apartment is not yet taken (attribué) -- which can happen surprisingly quickly -- the current renter will make an appointment with you to let you into his/her home for a quick tour. I'm not really sure about the etiquette here, I mean, what exactly are you supposed to say when someone shows you their toilet? Or their shower, which may or may not be located in the kitchen? I tend to just nod and smile; if I'm feeling brave I'll risk a brief question about the laundry facilities and then I thank the person for their time and bid them adieu. I should note here that more often than not, you won't be the only person seeing the apartment at that time. I've been on a tour with as many as 12 other people, and I've signed my name on a list of people who've seen an apartment that had 30 names on it. This can be daunting at first.
The visit to the apartment is not just for you to decide whether you want to live on the 6th floor of a building that smells like the cat food store on the ground floor, but also a legal obligation before one can move on to the next step. The next step is to visit the management agency (Régie or Gérances) which is the company that manages the apartment. There are probably a couple dozen agencies, with a handful being responsible for most of the business, so you will probably end up dealing with some more than once. This is unfortunate, because the agents are a bunch of real B-Ark middle management types who really couldn't be less helpful if they tried. After visiting an apartment, you have to go to the agency the next morning and "sign up" for the apartment (s'inscrire à l'appartement).
Why sign up? Here's where things get weird. Unlike Les Etats-Unis, which have come to terms with their racist past by pushing through mountains of legislation aimed at fighting discrimination, La Suisse doesn't seem to mind discriminating. Instead of accepting the first legitimate application, the agency will accept applications for an indeterminate length of time. How long? Who can say. I've seen ads go online in the morning, then I've visited in the evening, and by the next morning the Agency wouldn't accept my application as the apartment was already attribué. Clearly, a renter had been chosen ahead of time and the application process was a sham. Of course, no one will tell you this until you've hiked your butt over to the apartment and then the agency. On the other hand, I've seen apartments that were already emptied out and the agency insisted that they would wait at least 10 days for more applications.
Anyway, once they have all the applications, then they choose. They can choose whomever they want for whatever reason they want, so good luck to anyone with a foreign name. The application includes a photocopy of your passport, a copy of your residence permit, a copy of your contract showing your monthly salary, a document indicating that you already own renter's insurance on the apartment that you currently live in, and a special attestation de solvabilité from the government which attests to the fact that you do not have any outstanding debt in Switzerland. The work permit, the renter's insurance, and the attestation are exceedingly difficult to get (you need a residential mailing address to get any of them; the insanity of this Catch-22 fails to disturb anyone around here, though) but often an agency will kindly accept an application that is missing one of these things.
Then, when they start deciding on a winner, step one is to throw out all the applications that don't have all the appropriate papers and might cause the agency even the slightest potential inconvenience. Then they hand pick the person with the highest salary, most secure job, least kids and pets, and (I'm guessing here) the most local Swiss pedigree. Most Swiss people I've spoken with refuse to accept the possibility that some amount of racial and national discrimination might occur in their country, but, let's just say there isn't a Swiss name to be found on the mailboxes of the crappy, over-priced, furnished-studio-apartment building that I'm temporarily in right now.
A winner is ultimately selected and informed via a phone call; losers are informed through indifference. If you are selected, then you must agree to take the apartment or, if you don't want the apartment or you've found another, you must pay a fine to the agency of between 100 CHF and 300 CHF. This is an attempt to prevent you from applying to more than one apartment at a given time, and yet another way to keep the proletariat down. Since your odds of getting any single apartment, let alone two apartments, are ridiculously low, people ignore this and just fill out lots of applications. I have around 7 or 8 applications out now, of which 5 or 6 I've probably already lost out on.
Once you get an apartment, then you simply pay the security deposit (only three months rent, to be paid via a money order from the bank account that you can't get until you have a permanent address, again, with the money that you won't get until you've been working at least a couple months, etc.), buy renter's insurance if you don't already have it, buy fire insurance, and finally find a Swiss person to act as your guarantor and to sign the papers with you, kinda like getting your Mom's signature on a field trip permission slip in school. And ... voilà! You (and a few dozen other people this month) now have an apartment!
So, that's why I was viewing an apartment tonight. The apartment, by the way, was beautiful. Nice wood floors, a full size oven in a reasonably sized kitchen, and a beautiful view over the lake, too. All for a very reasonable price and in a pretty good location. So, after leaving the apartment, I checked my notepad to see which agency I will have to contact tomorrow morning and where they are located. The agency is "EPM Swiss Property Management" and, here's the pickle, I've already visited them once. And, not in a good way.
I visited the EPM offices last week to sign up for a nice apartment I'd just seen. As I'd done this a few times before, I thought I was well prepared. I filled out the form, leaving the parts about work permits, renter's insurance, and current address in Switzerland blank, and handed them along with a copy of my passport and a copy of my contract with EPFL to the woman at the counter. She looked at them for a while, and then asked me about my work permit. I explained to her that I had applied for it (saying it was "en cours") and that I couldn't finish the process until I had a permanent address. This explanation had satisfied the previous few agencies that I'd visited, but not her. She then started explaining to me that I needed to have a Swiss person apply with me as a guarantor. I asked her if she could explain to me in english why this was the case, she started, then gave up after about one sentence and continued in french. Then I asked her if she could speak more slowly. Basically, I had no idea what she was talking about. I kept saying "It was ok with the other agencies" over and over, and she kept shaking her head no. I asked her what I needed. She said something about getting a Swiss person to sign the form. As I considered this a fairly unreasonable request at this stage, I shrugged my shoulders in the universal sign of "WTF?" At which point she started saying something of which I understood nothing, so I shrugged my shoulders again and just turned around and walked away, leaving the offending application on her desk.
For those of you who think I was being childish, I want to point out that I'd already had a bad morning. I had just come from another agency, which was in a much nicer part of town and was pretty clearly not my type of people. When I asked to sign up for an apartment (which had been first listed the previous morning and which I saw with 10 other people the night before) I was told that it was already rented. Since the woman told me this without consulting any files, asking any of the agents, or even hesitating for a moment, I was left with the distinct impression of having been snubbed. It was a bad day for apartment hunting.
So, now, I desperately want to put in an application for this place, but I honestly don't think that I can show my face at EPM Swiss Property Management again. Or, at least, not without a genuine Swiss person in tow. I think I'll get someone French speaking to call ahead and ask what exactly is needed, then maybe I can fax in my application. My odds of getting the place are microscopic, but sometimes you just have to keep the shoulder to the grindstone and hope for the best.
---
Future updates: more rock, less talk! To come: pictures and descriptions of my smelly furnished studio (I'd describe the odor as a cross between a million cigarettes and a bathroom full of Legionnaires' Disease); pictures and descriptions of my visit to the statue of Freddie Mercury; and some other random stuff.
Once one appreciates the fact that there are many many people attempting to move into not-so-many apartments, the apartment searching process begins to make some sense. So, you start by checking out the classified ads (les petits anonces) and the internet for listings. Apartments are listed by the number of pièces or roughly "rooms" which means that when comparing to the American system, you take the number of pieces, subtract one and you get the number of bedrooms -- the living room (le séjour) counts as a pièce. Subtract the dinning room, which counts as a pièce, if it exists, and subtract all hope of a decently sized refrigerator or closets and there you go. Thanks to somewhat counter-productive rent control laws, prices tend to be a little bit lower than what you'd expect in a reasonably sized American city. Most of the 2 pièce places I've looked at go for between 1000 and 1200 CHF (Swiss Francs are almost exactly a buck); in the Bay area, they'd probably be about $1200 - $1500.
Once you've accumulated a short (or long) list of potential apartments, your next step is to brush up on your french, swallow your pride, and start making some phone calls. Thanks to one of the many laws that seems only to serve the landed gentry here (more of these later), you will have to call the current renter (le locataire), as it is their responsibility to show it to people until it is taken. Assuming the apartment is not yet taken (attribué) -- which can happen surprisingly quickly -- the current renter will make an appointment with you to let you into his/her home for a quick tour. I'm not really sure about the etiquette here, I mean, what exactly are you supposed to say when someone shows you their toilet? Or their shower, which may or may not be located in the kitchen? I tend to just nod and smile; if I'm feeling brave I'll risk a brief question about the laundry facilities and then I thank the person for their time and bid them adieu. I should note here that more often than not, you won't be the only person seeing the apartment at that time. I've been on a tour with as many as 12 other people, and I've signed my name on a list of people who've seen an apartment that had 30 names on it. This can be daunting at first.
The visit to the apartment is not just for you to decide whether you want to live on the 6th floor of a building that smells like the cat food store on the ground floor, but also a legal obligation before one can move on to the next step. The next step is to visit the management agency (Régie or Gérances) which is the company that manages the apartment. There are probably a couple dozen agencies, with a handful being responsible for most of the business, so you will probably end up dealing with some more than once. This is unfortunate, because the agents are a bunch of real B-Ark middle management types who really couldn't be less helpful if they tried. After visiting an apartment, you have to go to the agency the next morning and "sign up" for the apartment (s'inscrire à l'appartement).
Why sign up? Here's where things get weird. Unlike Les Etats-Unis, which have come to terms with their racist past by pushing through mountains of legislation aimed at fighting discrimination, La Suisse doesn't seem to mind discriminating. Instead of accepting the first legitimate application, the agency will accept applications for an indeterminate length of time. How long? Who can say. I've seen ads go online in the morning, then I've visited in the evening, and by the next morning the Agency wouldn't accept my application as the apartment was already attribué. Clearly, a renter had been chosen ahead of time and the application process was a sham. Of course, no one will tell you this until you've hiked your butt over to the apartment and then the agency. On the other hand, I've seen apartments that were already emptied out and the agency insisted that they would wait at least 10 days for more applications.
Anyway, once they have all the applications, then they choose. They can choose whomever they want for whatever reason they want, so good luck to anyone with a foreign name. The application includes a photocopy of your passport, a copy of your residence permit, a copy of your contract showing your monthly salary, a document indicating that you already own renter's insurance on the apartment that you currently live in, and a special attestation de solvabilité from the government which attests to the fact that you do not have any outstanding debt in Switzerland. The work permit, the renter's insurance, and the attestation are exceedingly difficult to get (you need a residential mailing address to get any of them; the insanity of this Catch-22 fails to disturb anyone around here, though) but often an agency will kindly accept an application that is missing one of these things.
Then, when they start deciding on a winner, step one is to throw out all the applications that don't have all the appropriate papers and might cause the agency even the slightest potential inconvenience. Then they hand pick the person with the highest salary, most secure job, least kids and pets, and (I'm guessing here) the most local Swiss pedigree. Most Swiss people I've spoken with refuse to accept the possibility that some amount of racial and national discrimination might occur in their country, but, let's just say there isn't a Swiss name to be found on the mailboxes of the crappy, over-priced, furnished-studio-apartment building that I'm temporarily in right now.
A winner is ultimately selected and informed via a phone call; losers are informed through indifference. If you are selected, then you must agree to take the apartment or, if you don't want the apartment or you've found another, you must pay a fine to the agency of between 100 CHF and 300 CHF. This is an attempt to prevent you from applying to more than one apartment at a given time, and yet another way to keep the proletariat down. Since your odds of getting any single apartment, let alone two apartments, are ridiculously low, people ignore this and just fill out lots of applications. I have around 7 or 8 applications out now, of which 5 or 6 I've probably already lost out on.
Once you get an apartment, then you simply pay the security deposit (only three months rent, to be paid via a money order from the bank account that you can't get until you have a permanent address, again, with the money that you won't get until you've been working at least a couple months, etc.), buy renter's insurance if you don't already have it, buy fire insurance, and finally find a Swiss person to act as your guarantor and to sign the papers with you, kinda like getting your Mom's signature on a field trip permission slip in school. And ... voilà! You (and a few dozen other people this month) now have an apartment!
So, that's why I was viewing an apartment tonight. The apartment, by the way, was beautiful. Nice wood floors, a full size oven in a reasonably sized kitchen, and a beautiful view over the lake, too. All for a very reasonable price and in a pretty good location. So, after leaving the apartment, I checked my notepad to see which agency I will have to contact tomorrow morning and where they are located. The agency is "EPM Swiss Property Management" and, here's the pickle, I've already visited them once. And, not in a good way.
I visited the EPM offices last week to sign up for a nice apartment I'd just seen. As I'd done this a few times before, I thought I was well prepared. I filled out the form, leaving the parts about work permits, renter's insurance, and current address in Switzerland blank, and handed them along with a copy of my passport and a copy of my contract with EPFL to the woman at the counter. She looked at them for a while, and then asked me about my work permit. I explained to her that I had applied for it (saying it was "en cours") and that I couldn't finish the process until I had a permanent address. This explanation had satisfied the previous few agencies that I'd visited, but not her. She then started explaining to me that I needed to have a Swiss person apply with me as a guarantor. I asked her if she could explain to me in english why this was the case, she started, then gave up after about one sentence and continued in french. Then I asked her if she could speak more slowly. Basically, I had no idea what she was talking about. I kept saying "It was ok with the other agencies" over and over, and she kept shaking her head no. I asked her what I needed. She said something about getting a Swiss person to sign the form. As I considered this a fairly unreasonable request at this stage, I shrugged my shoulders in the universal sign of "WTF?" At which point she started saying something of which I understood nothing, so I shrugged my shoulders again and just turned around and walked away, leaving the offending application on her desk.
For those of you who think I was being childish, I want to point out that I'd already had a bad morning. I had just come from another agency, which was in a much nicer part of town and was pretty clearly not my type of people. When I asked to sign up for an apartment (which had been first listed the previous morning and which I saw with 10 other people the night before) I was told that it was already rented. Since the woman told me this without consulting any files, asking any of the agents, or even hesitating for a moment, I was left with the distinct impression of having been snubbed. It was a bad day for apartment hunting.
So, now, I desperately want to put in an application for this place, but I honestly don't think that I can show my face at EPM Swiss Property Management again. Or, at least, not without a genuine Swiss person in tow. I think I'll get someone French speaking to call ahead and ask what exactly is needed, then maybe I can fax in my application. My odds of getting the place are microscopic, but sometimes you just have to keep the shoulder to the grindstone and hope for the best.
---
Future updates: more rock, less talk! To come: pictures and descriptions of my smelly furnished studio (I'd describe the odor as a cross between a million cigarettes and a bathroom full of Legionnaires' Disease); pictures and descriptions of my visit to the statue of Freddie Mercury; and some other random stuff.
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