(Continuation of the saga about the balcony “that would not be affected”, and the biggest lie ever told to me).
That part of the scaffolding (which is separate from the rest of the scaffolding as it was built much later) has now been there for two years, and those disgusting mats have been there for three months, for no apparent reason other than restricting my use of the balcony even further.
My question is now (yeah right, as if I ever receive any replies to my questions on this matter) – will this be the third whole summer season that I am unable to use my balcony fully? And the second whole summer season that I can’t invite visitors (2019 and 2021 – luckily for them there were other reasons why I could not invite people over during 2020 ……).
This disgusting mess has now been there for about three weeks for no apparent reason or purpose other than to make the place look even uglier and restrict my use of my balcony even more than they already have done for two years now. I am sick and tired of looking at it. I can’t believe the way they feel entitled to do this to others for so long. And I am completely powerless. Even our Hausverwaltung is on their side. They are renovating a building which is under “Denkmalschutz” which means they can do whatever they like to neighbouring buildings. For years and years.
My only “light at the end of the tunnel” right now is that by the time I have been vaccinated (1 July plus two weeks) hotels and holiday homes in Germany will be open so I can get out of this place and spend a couple of months at the North Sea, and return fit to face another autumn, winter, spring …..? without a balcony and with all this ugliness to look at.
One of the few things I miss about Denmark – apart from my brother and his family, and the proximity to the sea – is the relative honesty. I am not saying everybody in Denmark is pure as the driven snow, and that there are no bad apples, but growing up, I was practically brainwashed to believe that lying – for whatever reason – Is. Not. An. Option. Period. It just makes life easier when you can, on the whole, believe what others are telling you, and vice versa.
Not that making life easier is a thing in Germany. Just look at the garbage disposal system designed to be as cumbersome as possible – a small thing but a daily annoyance. The door to the general garbage bins binds, and has done all the time I have been living here, to the point that I am sometimes unable to open it, even when doing the shoulder-and-all-of-my-not-unsubstantial-weight-on-it thing. To dispose of paper/carton and bottles in separate bins, you have to drag the bins out in order to ease the stuff in, and then push the bin back in. Although I am old, I am not that weak yet, but I still ask myself almost every day what country and which century I am in when things are designed to be so difficult to everybody other than the youngest and strongest.
Anyway, that was a side track. So I was not overly used to being lied to, and I am also blessed with a healthy skepticism, but I have still been lied to, often in small matters which I have noted and forgotten, and often in matters that I did not see at the time, just realised later, and either added them to my mental list of people who are mendacious and unreliable, or brushed them off as not important . I will use the example of the renovations next door to make my point.
Far be it for me to glorify Denmark (after all, there are many reasons I am not living there …) but had that type of renovation been carried out in Denmark, I am quite sure that:
They would not have told us that the part of the scaffolding which is almost ON our balconies would be there for six to eight months, when they obviously knew it would be at least four times that amount of time;
They would not have told us that our balconies would not be affected, when in my case that could not have been further from the truth (the other balconies, all directly underneath mine, have been suffering from lack of light and the claustrophobia of having the scaffolding there but they have not to my knowledge been constantly plagued by thick layers of dust, rubble falling on to balcony and furniture, cigarette burns on one of my chairs, a severe reduction of sunlight compared to what they normally get, etc. etc., all chronicled in this category of posts. Now for almost two years and counting.
They would not have muttered about financial compensation just to appease us temporarily, unless they actually intended to pay it, which, as there has been no mention of that since the meeting where it was told to us verbally (that is the other thing here: whatever you do or say, make sure there is no documentation ……) early in 2019, that was obviously also just to make us go home without asking uncomfortable questions. Not that it matters since nothing will bring back two, soon-to-be three ruined summers. I know that to many, a balcony is not that important, but it is to me, and as I have mentioned before, it was one of the main reasons I bought this flat. Had it been smaller, or not on top and normally flooded in light, I would probably not have bought this flat.
I now know why there is so much distrust and suspicion in this society. It is because everybody knows that they and everybody else lie whenever that is the most convenient solution in the moment. Just something to get used to.
Two cigarette stubs miraculously disappeared, and then two new ones appeared.
As a complete coincidence, I saw one of them – still lit. It is raining today, so the fire hazard is minimal, but the material you placed there about a week ago, apparently for no other reason than to make my balcony look even uglier and restrict my use of it even further, to me looks highly flammable when it is dry.
You obviously consider my balcony nothing more than an ashtray for your workers, (and thanks to you, my flat is worth nothing these years), but it is my home, and believe it or not, despite everything, I love it. So please try not to burn down the house.
You would think that the least they could do was refrain from throwing cigarette stubs on my balcony as an added insult. I thought that had stopped after I complained about it some months ago, when I also found burn holes in one of the chair on the balcony. But no. Of course not.
The promise that my balcony would not be affected was made in a meeting between administrator and owners about two years ago, and is to this day the biggest lie anyone has ever told me. I think it was in the same meeting that we were promised some kind of compensation. I did not pay much attention since the amount was negligible – actually on hindsight completely pitiful – and I just thought yeah yeah whatever since my balcony “would not be affected”. In any case, there has been no mention of that compensation since then, so that was probably just another lie.
The other day, I had just cleaned the balcony floor and shelves for I don’t know which time, and suddenly it looked like this again:
So I cleaned up again, just in time for them to turn up and place some covering there, so now it looks like this:
I guess this qualifies as progress, unless they leave it like that for another couple of years.
But for now, I am keeping up hope. Having the full use of my balcony back would be far more important to me than receiving the COVID19 vaccine. The vaccine would not make a big change to my current lifestyle anyway. I would still have to adhere to most restrictions, including my own, and masks will be required for many months to come, and besides, with the new mutations spreading from banana republics such as Brazil and India, the current vaccines are not going to be much good for anybody in the longer term.
Being able to use my balcony, not to mention the fact that if they finally finish work on that wall, that part of the scaffolding can be removed, and I will get the daylight back which it is currently stealing and has been for almost two years now. All that would hugely enhance my quality of life.
And by the way, the size of the balcony and the light were among the main reasons I bought this flat.
I have been lied to more times in the five years I have lived in Germany than in the 63 previous years living in Denmark, Luxembourg, Belgium, and Denmark (again) put together.
I have conveniently forgotten most of them because they were less important in the grand scheme of things. The worst one, and the one I will never forget or forgive is the one told to me in the Eigentümerversammlung where we were told about the renovation project – Viktoriahöfe – next door and promised that our balconies would not be affected.
We were also told that that part of the scaffolding would be there for about eight months, i.e. till March-April 2020 (!).
And now they are letting several pairs of rats with wings (pigeons) nest on the shelf just above my balcony and I think also on the one above that.
I have had psittacosis twice before, with no after-effects, and I am not keen on tempting fate once more, which means that my balcony is off-limits for me from now on.
I thought the previous summer 2019, and spring and summer 2020 (the year where I had to spend most of my time at home (!!)) were ruined because at least 50% of the daylight was stolen by the monster scaffolding and I had to look at all that ugliness. But I could at least spend time on the balcony and grow a few herbs etc. there, although I did not feel like inviting friends around, even during the times where it was allowed.
However, now that they have let the netting collapse around the scaffolding, allowing pigeons to nest virtually on my balcony, but out of reach for me to remove them, I have to stay indoors altogether and also give up growing herbs etc. there.
EDIT 4 March – this one paragraph added: Despite my tendency to catch psittacosis easily, and the fact that pigeons also constantly try to nest on my own balcony (which I am able to control – sort of), and my resulting lack of sympathy for them, I still think this constitutes cruelty to animals, and despite several messages to Cresco Capital Group, they are seemingly refusing to respond let alone do anything about it: https://www.facebook.com/1073953174/videos/10221891189003568/.
So I have to stay off the streets as much as possible to avoid one virus – and off my balcony to avoid another one, in this case purely because Cresco Capital Group can’t be bothered to finish their work on one wall and remove that part of the scaffolding. This particular part of the scaffolding was added much later than the rest of the scaffolding and could therefore be removed again much earlier. If they wanted to. But the magic word, as ever, is DENKMALSCHUTZ, which means they can behave whichever way they like and I just have to be honoured and eternally grateful to be such a close – literally – neighbour to a building which – and this is the big irony – if they ever finish it in – what five? eight? years (this IS Berlin after all) – will still be one of the ugliest buildings in the world.
EDIT: I have just been informed that this is what it is going to look like for the duration, as far I understood the vague reply. That means at least another couple of years. I think I am going to scream. Does anyone know a lawyer with whom I could have a word about this?
Also, it turns out that they did what they had to do last week and that it was no longer necessary for the balcony to be empty. They just could not be bothered to inform me and grant me the honour of cleaning the balcony of the thick layer of dust and put everything back on it. I spent almost two hours yesterday cleaning the balcony. Today I went out most of the day and came home to find another thick layer of dust everywhere, including on the plants which I had been naive enough to put back. The nightmare never ends.
Earlier: I know it seems that I am just very angry – no more no less – but I am actually devastated.
I thought my balcony was chaotic in the past thirteen months or so, but just as I thought it was bound to get better soon, it got 150 percent worse. Not only is my balcony now even less useable, but my living room is barely live-able-in because so many things from the balcony have to be stored in there. Of course they said my balcony would never be directly affected (that’s almost hilarious ….), but to be fair, they never promised me that my living room would not be affected ……
This year of all years, where many of us have to stay at home the majority of the time, and not go out and be among other people, and not travel, it would have been so good to have a comfortable and nice-looking home, and the option to spend a lot of time on the balcony for daylight.
Now, having to spend so much time incramped and ugly surroundings, especially having no idea how long it will last (because Cresco Real Estate refuses to answer questions about it) is extremely stressful.
I used to love my flat and consider myself so lucky to have found it, but had I known what was going to happen and for how long, I am not sure I would have bought it. And now it is not only semi-un-useable, it is definitely un-sellable, and probably will be for the next around five years – this being Berlin.
The whole thing is literally zum Heulen, as they say. And there is no end in sight. Again today, NOTHING is happening at this end of the building.
And the irony: They are not even building a contemporary and interesting building. They are spending probably the best part of a decade, and I don’t even to know how many euros, plus making life a misery for hundreds of people living in the area – to restore one of the ugliest monstrosities in the world (Victoriahöfe, Lindenstraße).
