New Apartment!

After much moving anxiety we've moved into our new apartment and in doing so learned a great deal about how move ins generally go here.

-For starters, apartments are usually left completely vacant by the previous tenants who will usually take the light fixtures, fridge, oven, even the kitchen sink and cabinets in our case. This can be rather expensive to "fix" so I highly recommend finding a place that has a real kitchen unless you're willing to put forth the effort.


Invisible Kitchen.

-Another thing: the apartments are usually filthy when you move in. I spent 2 hours cleaning our floors & bathroom yesterday only to uncover layers of dirt, dead bugs, and some shattered glass on the balcony that our rental agent kept trying to getting us to clean (but we refused). Luckily, as our rental agency assured us they could clean the rooms earlier we got 100 euro taken off our rent for this month. Now they are shiny and clean.



-Because the housing market is doing so poorly these days, landlords will often spiff up the apartment with nice extras such as new flooring, balconies, or in our case a very excellent queen-size tub.



-Most contracts require you give 3 months notice prior to leaving.

-The deposit is usually 3 times the "cold rent" - or rent without utilities. This can be rather expensive to pay, but you are allowed to pay it over 3 months (they won't tell you this, but it's the law).

-Some rental agencies / landlords will require you to do a lot of work in order to get your deposit back- such as painting the walls, or even refurbishing the apartment if you stay long enough.

More pictures of the new place here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/everythingandrobots/sets/72157604106201473/

Finding An Apartment

Here are some links for sites that list apartments in Berlin.

Property Managers:
http://www.degewo.de
http://www.taekker.de (These are the people we're renting from)
http://www.ca-m.de/

Advert Sites:
(Note: Some of these sites charge commissions- check the site for details!)
http://www.wg-gesucht.de
http://mopo-immonet.berlin1.de
http://www.studenten-wg.de
http://mieten.immonet.de
http://www.immobilienscout24.de
http://www.rooms-in-berlin.com/
http://www.immowelt.de/

You can also find places by putting an ad out and/or reading the ads in the papers immobelien, zitty, and the local paper. Zitty and Exberliner are also online. Craigslist is an online classifieds site that we used all the time in the states. Here it's sometimes used, but usually for sublets / shares. Expatica is a great site for getting solid information. Unfortunately not many use their classifieds section.
http://kleinanzeigen.zitty.de/
http://cgi.xberliner.com
http://berlin.craigslist.org/
http://expaticade.franglo.com/classifieds

Other ways to get a place:
If you're desperate you can always go through a rental agency. I've heard this can be pricey, but is worth it as they do all the work for you- narrowing down the thousands of available empty apartments in Berlin to just one. Here are some I've found / been recommended to:

-Claudia C. Rehberg
Managing Director
Professional Organizing Relocation Consult GmbH
Post: Wiesenstraße 18, D-65843 Sulzbach
T: +49 (6196) 5946 12 F: +49 (6196) 5946 71
Mail: c.rehberg@proforg.com

http://www.progedo.de/41-1-press-articles.html
http://www.steptoberlin.de/aboutus.htm
http://www.first-relocating.de/

More about relocation agents here: http://www.expatica.com/de/housing/relocation/what-can-a-relocation-agency-do-for-you--571.html

Bored & Boarding House

(originally composed 02/01 17:00)
We safely arrived in Berlin at our boarding house which is called The Act of Balance. Upon arrival, we found out all at the same time that the owner of the property died 5 days ago, that our previous apartment had been rented, and that we were being upgraded free of charge to a much larger/nicer unit (for those looking at the website we were originally staying in type 2 but are now staying in type 3). The apartment is pretty big- ALOT bigger than our studio back in San Francisco. There are a few oddities about it however.

Lovely Art-Deco Couch in our apartment's living room.

1) We made an agreement with the owner that we would have high speed internet in the apartment, but due to the erm, circumstances mentioned above this did not happen. As a result, we ended up running from available apartment to available apartment (many of them nicer than this one!) to see if we could get a wireless signal. In the end, the only way I (vegi schnitzel) could get wireless is by sitting in the office directly next to the wireless router. Schnitzel, however, was able to get wireless in the apartment more or less, so we arranged with the manager that we would use the office whenever we needed to until they could have the wireless connection to our apartment repaired. UPDATE: We've since found out that this will not happen for some time, as the person who typically handles internet setup for the building is having a new kitchen installed and is too busy to see to other matters.

Couch & Matching 1990s Dentist-Office-Chic Table

2) There is a broken spot in the couch. We pointed this, and the fact that the main window can actually come off the hinges to the owners, but they seemed to have no problem with it, so I suppose we will just have to sit around it.

Somewhat intimidating / monolith-like living room furniture.

3) For some reason, the "large bed" is actually two twin beds that have been pushed together. This has resulted in much giggling from schnitzel and vegi schnitzel, who are beginning to feel like a Cold War Television couple.

Partially-broken, dangerously looming balcony window.

4) German television apparently consists of 25 channels featuring documentary-style programming about happily employed germans at their jobs. Considering Germany's racing unemployment problem, I can see why they would choose to saturate the country in this kind of programming in an attempt to boost moral.