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Renting until you are broken – the new city life?

Renting until you are broken – the new city life?

Can someone explain to me why rents are increasing as if there’s no tomorrow?

I mean, honestly, I understand fully that a landlord is not giving away his house/ flat for free and wants to earn some money with it. Some money, enough money to be able to maintain everything plus money on top for their own, I got this. What I am not getting anymore is why people who rent are seen as a luxury income. Hey, and I’m not writing about deluxe apartments or big mansions, I’m writing about normal flats, houses for families.

You can argue now that it is my very own fault if I decide to live in Munich and yes, you are partly right with it. Partly because I accept that everything is a bit more expensive here than in a small countryside city, but what I do not accept is that you pay a fortune for nothing.

I am checking offers since a couple of years now and the market is truly insane. People offer for instance a house which is in the state of the 1980’s, the bathroom is a disaster, kitchen not available (means you have to bring your own), carpets everywhere also from the 1980’s, the garden not maintained at all. The size is 110 square metres and they ask for either a monthly rent of 2300 Euro (without gas and water) or if you want to buy the price is 980.000 Euro.

If only I could tell you that this is a joke, but they are indeed serious.

What should a family earn in order to have a nice family home to stay in?

As a family we are willing to pay entry for the zoo, we love to go and eat outside, grab ice-cream on the way to the playground, buy local and support smaller shops in our area, we love the “hood” we are living in. But all of this would be impossible when we move to a bigger place because of these ridiculous prices.

Our current living situation is tiny, our place is small but we live where we want to live. Of course we wouldn’t mind to have more place and a garden, not at all, but not if we have to cut our visits to the museum, eating out or summer vacations.

Are cities only made for the rich?

Are only the top managers allowed to live here? Is it the newly rich clients you are looking for to spend their money here? A city will lose its spirit like this and a city will not have any more stories to tell.

Apart from ‘normal’ families, has anyone ever thought about the elder people? A 82-year old widow who would love to stay in the flat where her husband died but cannot afford it anymore. A 90-year old man who is half blind but knows all the ways he needs for his daily life by heart. A couple married for 60 years and rooted exactly where they live. There is a saying that you cannot plug a tree out of the soil and plant it somewhere else, the same counts for many of the elder. It breaks my heart if I see them shattered because they don’t know where their life will go on. I even forget about all the young ones (us included) because we could make it anywhere, still.

Munich has a history, like every other city, there are biographies of people who lived here and brought something with them. There are statues all over the city and every single one of them tells a story. We will not write further history like this. A city lives through the personalities and if these are all forced to move outside the city spirit will slowly disappear.

Every even little personality surely was not rich and famous by the time they left their footprint in the heart of this city. Some where, some were not, it has always been a good mixture and that is how it should be.

Greedy is the new normal especially when it comes to living spaces within a city. Who has the newest building, who has the best view, who is in the most expensive area,… Shouldn’t it be: who can help neighbours when needed, who can support the homeless, who smiles at strangers because life is a wonderful thing?

Instead of greed let happiness rule because it doubles if you share – at the end of the day that counts more than the number on your bank account, does it not?

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First World Problems

Finally we decided to take a break from our munich corona quarantine routine and visit my parents. We waited so long because they are living in a small town and we wanted to avoid to bring the virus out of a big city into their area. Once we decided that we go we tried to avoid even more the contacts we had in munich than before.

Talking about our contacts, truly, that weren’t many because apart from our essential errands the only contacts we had here were neighbours which you obviously meet when you live in the same building.

These “problems” are seriously first world problems. We are both relatively young (depends from which perspective you see it) and in general healthy. Both of us were working, were because the situation changed for me already at the end of last year, but not in a bad way, and my husband “lost” his job due to corona which is also nothing bad as it gives us exclusive family-corona-time if you would like to call it that way. We are not struggling moneywise and our fridge is full.

Humans are strange – especially when they have too much time.

misssfaith

What I have seen in the beginning and also throughout the course of the first weeks from this pandemic lockdown is that many people are wise. Wiser than they probably know even themselves before the pandemic started. Or how would you explain that persons with an immense knowledge of virology never thought about a career in science? Why don’t we have more people willing to study politics? There seem to be many potential leaders out there who know much better how to rule countries?

This pandemic is showing the truth and this truth is for many not as charming as they would love to be seen.

Complaints I cannot hear anymore – and these are just the main ones, meaning the top of an iceberg:

I cannot breathe under that mask, it is ridiculous to ask all people to wear it.

Where are all these issues coming from, I would really love to understand it? As a normal healthy person it is maybe unusual in the beginning and it may get sweaty now during summer, BUT nobody has to wear these masks 24/7. They should be worn in closed buildings, during grocery shopping, etc. Apart from this we still should try to go only when needed and not for extensive shopping trips into some malls, right?

I cannot celebrate my birthday with friends and family because gathering of more than 5 persons is not allowed.

Seriously? Even my 4-year-old wasn’t making a huge issue. Be happy that you are turning a year older! There are people who worry that not all are allowed to attend the funeral of a loved one. This is something really to be sad about!

Our garden is so small, how should we manage to keep the kids entertained?

Our family is living in a two-room apartment, what is a garden? There is plenty of nature on this planet and in many cases you don’t have to drive hours to be in a forest, on a field, at a lake…if you have a garden you are already one of the really lucky ones and you don’t realize?

My favourite restaurant is closed because of corona.

It’s hard to comment here even. Do people know that there are others who have nothing to eat AT ALL? People who struggle to survive?

It’s all made up by the pharma industry to sell their vaccines.

Yes, I’m part of the pharma industry if you want as I work in that area…and surprisingly for many I don’t say everything out there is needed! There are tons of products which may not be life saving or important. But vaccines in general saved millions of lives and still nobody ever forces you to get vaccine, right? It is still your choice in the end!

Third world…

I know already what comments I may get. You cannot argue with third world problems (and this third world is already making me angry as we are one world!). I tell you YES, yes I can argue with it because a pandemic is not stopping anywhere. It is crawling into each little corner of this planet and this virus doesn’t care at all if it hits the poor or the rich. The truth is that we as the rich (and that’s what we are when we have access to health care and internet) have higher chances to survive. We may end up in hospitals, and yes, people died and will die, but they didn’t die in a dark and dirty mud hole without being seen even.

I’m so angry, angry at people who don’t realize how lucky they are, angry when everything which could help is neglected without a valid reason. It is NOT a reason if it doesn’t fit into their way of living or style. A mask isn’t matching the handbag? But you have access to masks, right?

Take a step back for your own sake.

From my perspective it is even essential to compare to be grounded again. Many were flying high as we had no limits and now we see what this can cause? Striving to go higher and higher in general is not a bad thing but it should be done in a mindful way. Question things and analyse them, are they worth doing it? Who would benefit? Would it serve others? What is it doing to the planet?

Seeing the earth recovering is wonderful and sad at the same time. It was us doing the harm!!! There’s no way to neglect this.

We all should use this time as a wake-up call to be a change.

Ok, I started with our decision to visit my parents and that’s what we did.

My lesson to take from there is the following:

Family is the most important!

A garden is wonderful and I would lie if I wouldn’t miss it but the essence of our stay is really just that. People we love are the most precious gift, to have this time together gave us all rest and strength to move forward.