7 THINGS CONSIDERED A LUXURY IN GERMANY BUT NORMAL IN THE USA
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 30 มิ.ย. 2024
- ⤹Everything you want to know is here!⤵︎
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00:00 7 things considered a luxury in Germany but normal in the USA
01:00 Mike's 1st point: kitchens
02:34 Mike's 2nd point: customer service
04:20 Mike's 3rd point: space
05:54 Mike's 4th point: built-in closets
07:41 Laundry rooms
08:48 Electronic Garage door openers
10:45 Air conditioning
14:01 Thank you for watching and don't forget to subscribe!
How old are you?
As old as the days are long
Where are you from?
Florida
Where do you live?
Germany
love yall
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It is 4:48am and I am still awake I will come argue in the comment section with yall once I wake up! Let me know if your garage door is opened electronically or manually!! 🤗
I don't have a car or a garage, but my parents automated their garage door when my brother and I moved out and were no longer around to open it for them (lol). That was decades ago and since then, more and more things in the house got automated as they grew older - especially the "Rollläden".
I installed a garage door opener over 20 years ago when we built this house I am living in now. The garage can accommodate two cars so the door is quite large. And my mom used to live here alone so I made the door open electrically. But the remote has some electronics in it.
Moin, und danke für das Video! Mal wieder recht interessant! Wenn ich eine Garage hatte, dann war es immer eine Tiefgarage. Und die war schon, Ende der siebziger Jahre, mit einer elektronischen Öffnung Software versehen! Auch unsere jetzige Tiefgarage, von der Mietwohnung, in der wir jetzt wohnen, wird von außen elektronisch geöffnet. Und von innen. Liebe Grüße und einen schönen Sonntag nach Florida aus Ahrensburg Ben❤😂
Since I do not own neither a driver's license nor a car (duh!) I do not own nor need a garage. But when I was a teenager my mom's garage had a remote to open it. That was about 40 years ago ^^
Il like that hairdo with the band a lot btw, suits you perfectly ^^
👉very little typo mistake at 11:17: Ich will DAS nicht zahlen/putzen....
In Germany we don't say "wow, look at our neighbour's christmas decoration!"
We say "Dem seine Stromrechnung will ich nicht bezahlen" and I do think it's very German, too. 😅
I have heard these little sayings so many times and just chuckle
😂😂😂👍
@@HayleyAlexis The posing status race was not that implemented in germany of the less commercial past, like in the conditioned US. But it got more, while we did more laugh about the try to infuence us through TV+ promotion. Now it is as more normal seen and social media hacked the children of these a bit more naive parents.
Now they kill as well for having and worth-status in tendency. Mostly they wear the 'christmas decoration' on their bodies and do selfies. 😄
'Dessen' Stromrechnung.... 😉
@@teotik8071
Du hast absolut recht. Es müßte der Genitiv verwendet werden, aber leider ist im landläufigen Sprachgebrauch der Dativ vorherrschend. Aber das hier in diesem Kontext zu bemängeln ist nicht korrekt, da es sich um ein Zitat bzw. gängige Aussage handelt.😉
Viele Wohnungen in Deutschland stammen aus den 1950er und 1960er Jahren oder sind noch deutlich älter. Damals HATTEN die Leute keine Waschmaschinen, also gab es auch keinen speziell dafür eingeplanten Platz. Die einzigen Räume mit Wasseranschluss und Abfluss waren Küche und Bad/WC. Daher stehen heute Waschmaschinen oft im Badezimmer oder in der Küche. Weil es alte Bausubstanz ist.
A pool ! I feel like its way more common in the US and luxurious in Germany 🎉
Yes, of course. Absolutely!
I dont have no bloody pool because it don't want to clean that bloody pool.
I really honestly forgot about a pool....Fun fact- the first home I lived in, in Germany had a pool :)
Might be true. But since public pools are very common in Germany, most people rather use them than wasting extra money and time for a pool they barely can swim in.
In Germany AC is not considered luxury but unnecessary and expensive. People usually know how to cool down their homes in hot summer days and since AC is uncommon houses are built with decent insulation.
When I walk into an Aldi on a hot summer day, and I get a blast of cold air from the AC, that is what I call luxury: )
German houses with a heat pump often have the option to cool via the underfloor heating pipes. Ours certainly has.
Tell that to the people living in attic flats, I bet they would kill for a built-in AC in the summer.
I've been living in several attic flats in Germany during the last 20 years. In my first attic flat I didnt know what to do in summer, but I asked friends and the internet and I quickly found good strategies to cool it down like airing it during the night and hanging several moist sheets in my room.
20 years later I am quite surprised I didnt know about those strategies back then but since I grew up in a firm brick house with thick walls I didnt need it before.
It’s not about knowing how to cool yourself off. In America there are senior citizens and other with health conditions that need air conditioning. You can die from the heat. There are times of the year in America where you can have 90/100 degree weather for days/weeks continuously.
I've lived in Germany my whole life and never once have I had to wait 30 mins for a check or gotten my appetizers after the main course.
You are very lucky... I think the longest Mike and I have waited is 45 minutes.
Same here. To be forgotten yes, maybe happened once or twice in my life, but getting meals in the wrong order - never.
There are a few restaurants in my area where this happens often😅 the more reason to NOT go there anymore, if it happens once
Ein Ventilator tut es auch für 20€. Sind auch oft ausverkauft im Hochsommer.
@@HayleyAlexisIf I haven't gotten the check after 10min I just warn them they have to bring it now or I'll just leave. Goes really quick after that.
But yes, that's certainly a valid criticism. Service is definitely not as fast as in the US.
On the flipside, when you're not used to how it's done in the US it can also seem a bit rude at times. The first time I was in the US and in a restaurant I was incredibly taken aback that they brought my check while I was still eating. Not being used to that it seemed like they were throwing me out. It was an empty restaurant and I had actually planned to order a coffee and maybe a dessert. I was really confused and felt uncomfortable and so just paid and left. 🤣
I've never found the German service problem to be an issue. If the food comes out of sequence (this has never happened to me) don't pay for it. If you are waiting for the bill/check too long, just get up and make a move to go - they will rush over to present the bill - simple. It all has nothing to do with pay or tips, its an attitude as to who is in command and being the dominant party is the most important status.
Built in kitchens are a necessity, built in closets are not. In our house no normal built in closet would be big enough for out clothes and often the location of a built in closet sterilises the use of the room that limits the inclusion of more clothes space. Having no built in closets allows for the installation of free standing wardrobes or even built in wardrobes. Generally, my German relations have large wardrobe ranges in their bedrooms that would exceed any possible closet space for storage.
Having a laundry room in US is much easier to attain as the housing is cheaper with greater potential space. In most of Europe space in houses is at a premium for all sorts of reasons and incorporating laundry machines had to go where they could. However, one detail in many traditional houses in Germany was the use of the attic/loft for drying washing. This meant that washing could be hung to dry in a well ventilated space all year round. Air dried clothing is far superior to machine tumble drying, giving clothes a fresher smell and feel.
Electric garage door openers are not the luxury you would imagine. A manual opening garage door is almost 100% reliable, whereas electric garage door openers are notorious for failures and when they do its a huge inconvenience and takes days to fix. Besides, how many people in Europe use a garage to park their car in? Most domestic garages are used as stores for all the kit and kaboodle that we feel we need, bicycles, garden equipment, boats et etc.
From what I have seen German/European houses are better built that US ones and therefore things like Air Con are not a necessity. The US appears to use tech to overcome basic design flaws because energy is so cheap.
For the only 3 months where we don't need central heating, I really don't want to drive up my utility bill with AC. Also, it's not necessary. Just air the rooms wisely in summer, if it's hot. -- My washing machine is in my bathroom, because it's more convenient than having to go into the cellar to hang it up there. I hang it up on the patio or in one of the rooms here and it doesn't cost me a thing! -- as to to wardrobes... they used to be hand-carved and handpainted precious heirloom in the past, and match the bed and nightstands. If you needed to move, you wanted to take your precious furniture with you.
I live in an ancient house in the Altstadt of a German city. We have three rooms in our flat. So there's no space for a laundry room. We have the washing machine in our kitchen and it's not considered filthy: we collect the laundry in our sleeping room where we undress. The laundry goes into the kitchen only to be washed and leaves it to be dried. Due to the lacking space we do not have a tumble drier.
Some multistorey buildings have a common laundry room in the basement, but our house doesn't have a basement.
I used to repair washing machines in UK and probably 95% of them were in kitchens.
Regarding the Restaurants, if they forget me at the table, as soon as I finish my meal I take my clothes and go direct to the bar or counter and ask to pay there (with the card and no tips).
It's not normal to be treated like that in a restaurant, it must have been a really bad one. It has nothing to do with more or less tip, must just have been a bad attitude of the owners. We don't consider build in closests necessarily as luxury, because it limits the way you can use a room. Laundry rooms are often in the basement including space for drying clothes. It's just not true that electronic garage doors aren't common. A difference that is true is that garages seldomly have direct access to the house. That's more common in the USA. You can't compare the average German climate to the climate in the USA. Additionally we have completely different structures of the houses and proper blinds. It just wasn't necessary to have ACs. Plus there is a different mindset and education according resources and environment.
One of the things I like about this channel is the balance: you show good things and bad things about both USA and Germany!
I love that!
In Austria, there are sometimes towns who give you a piece of land for free if you build a house and move there (preferably with kids). It might save their elementary school, or other infrastructure.
oh wow that is very interesting!!
11,35 per m². 1000 m² = 11350,-- Euros. Including water, power and canalisation. I guess you may call this nearly "free".
@@wolfgangpreier9160 in a village near Rappottenstein they actually gave land away for free if you met very specific criteria. They had 10 plots of land set aside for this purpose and only 2 were given away for free, a few others were sold at a price of something like 15€ per m², and I think there are 3 plots still available. I guess the appeal of free land isn't enough to compensate for being in a location that's far away from your work or infrastructure you need.
Shopping on Sundays - or getting anything done on a Sunday. In Germany, mostly just cafes and some restaurants are open.
We don’t need a electric garage opener, we only use our garage to work on bikes, we have a driveway for 4 cars and that’s were our cars are 😂 hello’ from Germany …our brick home is insulated really good, don’t need air conditioner
A well built house is normal in Germany but a luxury in USA, where the emphasis is on size rather than quality.
Germany is smaller than Montana (1 million inhabitants), but has 84 million citizens!
As Poldi once said back then: "80 Millionen sind eine sehr große Zahl!" 😂😂
An electronic garage door opener is very common in Austria, can't believe it's considered a luxury in Germany
I wouldn't consider it a luxury, either. Most modern garages have them.. only if you have an older house and haven't "modernisiert" it then it will be not an electric garage opener.
@@Kloetenhenne And I think that's the thing. A huge chunk of the German housing market dates from the 50s to the 70s, and back then electronic garage doors were not really a thing. Some may have modernised their garage doors since then, but it's probably not that many, since Germans like to save money on things like this unless they absolutely need it for some reason
I would say all modern homes have it, it's just that there are a lot of older houses in Germany, and many people do not update them a lot.
It's not that common in Austria, there are a lot of old houses where garage doors are opened manually
It is.
What Mike isn't the typical German who gets sick from the air conditioning ? 🤣🤣🤣
In Florida, the heat makes you sicker than the aircondition....
As a German I can say, you are absolute right with German customer service. Sure, as a young man I worked as a waiter and my service was way over the top, but I got tipped way more than it is typical for Germany. But in general, yes, service isn't very good, but many people who worked there, have been paid very bad as I was young and tips in general weren't great, so many resignated and did minimum service. I don't know how it changed since there is a minimum wage.
Everything else I would say we do things different and therefore don't need these things, except built in kitchens (but this is more my personal opinion).
the no kitchen thing is also normal in Italy! That was a huge cultural shock when I moved here! And my husband found it amazing when we moved to the US (for just 4 years, but it was enough!) that every apartment we looked at came with a complete kitchen, including stove/oven, fridge, dishwasher, etc, not to mention A/C! Having your washing machine (dryers are a luxury!) in the kitchen is also common in Italy. In fact, in my first apartment here, I used the top of the washing machine as extra counter space since it was such a tiny kitchen!
8:35 just a matter of space. a dedicated laundry room means to "waste" a room (that you have to pay for) for something that would also fit in the bathroom.
Oh for the last point, i have an idea, since in the US you have no problems with wasting energy in masses, why don't you have extra refrigirater units for your water, so that its als always cold ? I mean, wouldn't that be a very USian thing ?
It wouldnt come out of the faucet though 😂
@@HayleyAlexis Why not ? I mean you are so proud of your AC but nobody is capable of building a proper WC ?
Auf deutsch, wenn ich da den Begriff "Klima Anlage" höre, dann würde für mich auch kaltes Wasser dazu gehören, wenn das sonst einfach nur lauwarm ist. Aber da reichts dann wohl das mega extra grosse Eisswürfel Teil im Kühlschrank zu haben und man schmeiss notfalls Eiswürfel in die Badwanne 😄😄
Ok .. ich weiss .. auch wenn heiss ist will wohl kaum wer kalt baden, wäre aber schon lustig.
indeed!!
I've never experienced tap water that doesn't get cold. But it makes me think of another luxury in America - warm water in all public sinks. I hate washing my hands at restaurants in Germany cuz it's just cold usually. In the unbearably hot German Summers, I don't mind.
that is very true.... and it can be ICE COLD during winter which is a double whammy... Cold air with cold water... Your hand turns into an ice cube
Electric garage door openers are actually pretty common in Germany. Only really old houses do not have them.
They say "Service-Wüste Deutschland" in Germany for a reason! In (too) many places, not limited to restaurants, the customer is almost treated with toxic hostility.
13:55 oh Hayley let me tell you about showers and plumbing in the UAE, where i grew up.... the majority of people live in apartment buildings, which have water tanks on the roof. during the Arabian summers, where temps can reach 53C (120F), the tanks get heated up by the sun; so we open the COLD water tap to get scalding hot water; and the kitchen and each bathroom had their own small water heater (small comp. to US) with a 40L (10-12 gal.?) tank which would be indoors, sometimes exposed to the AC's cold air. i was/(still am) a person who likes to take hot showers even in the heat of summer, but even i would have to open the HOT water tap to let out some cooler water to make the boiling hot water shower more bearable... and when that "cold" water heater tank got empty, that's when i knew it was time to step out of the shower....
Edit: a 40L water heater tank was still quite large, my dad had a good job and we lived in large apartments.... most people would've had 20L or even 12/10L tanks
The kitchen thing seems to depend on the Bundesland. In Schleswig-Holstein it is pretty common to have build in kitchens. In Niedersachsen its more common to buy your own kitchen.
The placement of washers/dryers is definitely down to the combination of both space and piping. In older houses, the bathroom and kitchen were the only places where you could feasibly put the water hookups for a washing machine, and in newer homes they're still put there because having a dedicated laundry room takes up a lot of space that could be used more efficiently.
Those are excellent points. Especially the laundary room, the inbuilt kitchens and closets. A/Cs would be nice as well, as long as you can still open the windows and turn it off when you don't really want it and turn on when you want or have to.
Most apartments in Germany, especially in cities, are too small for a laundry. So we put the washing machine in the bathroom or kitchen (where you already have the piping). In some places, you have a shared laundry ("Waschküche") in the basement for all tenants, either with shared machines from the landlord or you can put your own machine there. But where space is not that rare as in cities, most houses have a Waschküche of their own.
Ok, you asked for it :D
1. I wouldn't consider an inbuild kitchen a luxury, since you'll always end up having a kitchen anyways. It's a convenience for sure, just not a luxruy, unless it is a super fancy kitchen.
Whenever I moved, I took my kitchen with me, but sometimes, you can even buy off the existing kitchen from the previous inhabitant.
And especially when you're renting, I would feel strange to not own the kitchen, since that probably also means, someone else has to fix it and I can't modify it, to my liking.
2. Personally I've never experienced something like that at all. Sure, you have a busiy days, where the service workers are running all over the place, constantly doing something and then it can get a bit hard to draw their attention. However as a general rule of thumb, the service in Germany is not different to other european countries, that I've visited. So maybe it is just that much better in the US, I wouldn't know. What you described however sounds just sounds like a very shitty restaurant. Appatizers after main course and then being confused, why you wouldn't want them anymore, sounds appaling.
3. I agree, space comes at a premium here, although it also gets cheaper away from the cities. having 10 acres though, yeah not likely for family dwelings.
I have to ask though, is this much space still affordable for the newer generations in the us or are these plots of lands, you describe in family possession for a while?
Since I heard a lot about the housing pricing shooting through the roof in the US, I was wandering. And also do those people actually own that land or does the bank and they are still paying off the price?
4. Build in closets I would view as a luxury, yes. Although that might be a bit short sigthed. I can set up my wardrobe, withing an hour and hang my stuff then too, while the build in wardrobe is using space, that i could otherwise dedicate for something else. So maybe it is a weird mixture of luxury/convenience.
5. Laundry rooms in an appartment are certainly a luxury. In a house, less so, I would say. In the kitchen feels weird to me to, although I had considerd it in the past. So it#s either the bathroom or the comon laundry room, in the basement, if you are renting an appartment.
6. Garage door openers are more like a choice I would say. You can easily retrofit them to most common garage doors. So I don't see, why a multi million euro house, wouldn't have them, unless the ownders don't want them. They are certainly not very wide spread here in Germany, but come more and more into fashin, because of the convenience.
However for me, the luxury in the US would be more the size of your garages. They always seem to be much wider, than the ones I see around here. And that may even be the reason, why you "need" the electric openers, for your much wider doors.
7. Yeah, that's a luxury, since it costs a lot and is only useful for a limited amount of time. Sometimes I wish I had one, but I could just eat more ice cream instead, so I think I still win :D
Aditional Ideas:
- I think that goes back to the availability of space, having 4 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms sounds like a huge luxury to me. Having a guest toilet and a master bathroom is already a nice setup. Adding even more fully equipped bathrooms, sounds excessive to me. The Bedrooms, I assume only means living room and 4 extra rooms to use. unthinkable in an appartment situation, so I assume that would be a house then.
Btw. renting a house is already kinda unusual here, I believe.
I moved to Germany in 1999. The Apartment we rented had a two floor parking garage. The first floor was open to the public, the second for residents, had both a key opener that you could use while sitting in your car or we could have gotten an electric opener for a small deposit. The key option was fine for us.
The next two Reihenhäuser we rented also had both and when we finally built, all houses built from say 2005 on had automatic garage door openers as standard from the various builders. In the end, it was the home owners decision.
Houses older than say 2000 either don’t have automatic openers or garages clustered a bit away from several houses. But each older house that is now purchased and remodeled in my city seems to add in an automatic garage door opener. So it is becoming more standard.
I live in a pretty standard area, certainly not the most expensive part of my city.
Bathroom and Kitchen are usually rooms with tiles as surface, so when there is water spillage the carpet or wood floor would not be damaged.
I love your videos. My husband is British and we’re always comparing the differences between the US and UK. He also probably gets tired of me talking about your videos. 😂
Usually when you move from your appartment, you take your kitchen and put it in thenew appartment.
Only if you switch to an appartment with a kitchen, what is moe and more common, you would need a new one, if you then move to one, without a kitchen.
"Hinterhof" you be the backyard in a town. To say something is in the middle of nowhere, we would use "Hinterland" (the land behind).
Build in closet is quite old fashioned. Hundred years + ago it was common. It is the same with tailor made furniture.
Laundry room is usually in the cellaror in older houses you had such a room, next to the garden door, where you hang the clothes to dry.
Today you put the washing machine in the bath, the kitchen or the cellar.
One garage is not unusual, but an entry into the house is rare. Therefore you have to go out of the garage, and therefore you could shut the garage from outside yourself.
We now go for Wärmepumpen (heat pump) to save as much energy as possible, there we donot use an AC.
Concerning the garage-door-openers: Often garages are not directly attached to a house. Sometimes when houses are lined up one next to the other ("townhouse"?) there is no space for a garage and the garages are grouped slightly away from the houses. In both cases it's difficult to have electricity in the garage, so no garage-door-openers. (There are solar-powered ones for these cases, but they aren't overly common.) However, wherever possible garages will get hooked up to electicity and will also get garage-door-openers; saying that it's uncommon to have them is a bit exaggerated; I'd say about half of them have them.
Hi Hayley,
We have an electronic opener for our garage door and I am also always forgotten when it comes to ordering something or paying the bill in a restaurant. But I am lucky, my husband is always successful.
Being from Switzerland, even for us as German neighbours the "bring your own kitchen to a new apartment" concept is a unknown, crazy thing.
I´m not very often eating in reastaurants, but with my age I have still an amount of times! And I´m glad it never happened to me to get the appetizer after the main meal! Also to be forgotten was rarely the case! But I can understand your point of few, although I think it´s the exception!
And you are right about the laundry room! I think bc of square meters are getting more and more expensive it would be a waste of space, but I know that houses, (one family houses) have this luxury, even more in earlier days! The same goes for garages! It was normal for houses to have a garage at the house, sometimes even a doubble garage! Nowadays its luxury to have a garage at all, not to mention electronic garage doors. Everything is so expensive now , and in the last decade, and you can´t afford it anymore!
Nice episode! Thank you!
I can agree with nearly everything Hayley described as normal in North America. Air conditioning is not always needed where I live in Indiana, near Chicago. It is possible to not need it, though it is humid much of the summer. June to August is peak season for needing AC to reduce humidity. Also, the water is almost always cold here, whether it comes from Lake Michigan, the ground, or from a river. My water comes from the ground where i live, as my street is not on municipal water, but the street north of me is on municipal water. In the winter, I actually dont like having my clothes rinsing in cold water in the washer, because it gets too cold to properly rinse. North American washers do not heat its own water, like European washers do, which helps some. Some high end North American front loader washers do have a heating element in some models, though its meant for boosting the temperature a few degrees higher, and for the steam feature. Even then, thats only the wash water, and i believe washers made after 2010, can only have cold rinses, and it must be tap cold. My old front loader washer made in 1999, had a warm rinse available, which I used in the winter, just so my clothes rinsed properly.
At least in my old neighborhood, garages are a luxury, as they were not included in my post WW2 neighborhood. My size lot does not allow for an attached garage, which is common in new construction in new subdivisions. My property would have to have a detached garage if I wanted one. That would increase my property taxes if I had a garage. With my area being unincorporated, I pay $472 for this year on my 925 sq ft home with 3 bedrooms and 1 bathroom, on a half acre lot.
I agree with all of your points! I really prefer the US way of having a kitchen, a laundry room and a built-in closet included in the appartment. Buying (and installing) a kitchen is such a hassle, particularly when you're young and money is tight. Everyone is grateful when a place comes with a kitchen, moving is exhausting enough on its own. I have seen listings for newly built buildings, though, and they actually come with a kitchen, so I guess they are improving a little on that. And you know what else the US does better? Flyscreens! Why are they not a must in all buildings in Germany?
I think you did the inverse unit conversion at 12:30. 14°C difference in indoor temperature would be crazy.
😂 I just noticed this and yes that is very true! oops.... it is actually 3.... I dont know how or why I got 14 😂😂😂
@@HayleyAlexis yeah stumbled upon that in the video and was really puzzled. But still, you keep your home 6°F cooler than your mom does and you get more than $200 less of a bill per month? what?
Do you both cool your entire home or are you able to control each room separately, so that e.g. in the bed room it is colder than in the living room but in the bath it is warmer to save some energy?
Did you compare your two bills not by money but from the aspect of consumed energy? I doubt your mom has more energy consumption, even if she cooles her whole home, because she uses to have it at a higher temp and therefore should consume much less energy.
In Germany we also have the freedom to select a energy provider of our choice, I assume that's the same where you live in FL? Wouldn't it benefit your mom to select another provider with a better plan?
@zorrothebug She uses a little more energy than I do but nonetheless she has double (sometimes triple) my electricty bill... It is because her provider SUCKS!
I love this series. Made me think about quite a few things..😂. I think my expectation in on autopilot when we travel between the USA and Germany.
In many residential buildings in Germany’s major cities there is a shared washing machine (or maybe 2) in the basement or a separate laundry room in the basement where you can set up your washing machine/dryer. Bathrooms and kitchens are often too small to accommodate these devices.
I think that with the "empty" kitchen is a very Germany thing, because here in Switzerland it is like in the USA if you rent an apartment or house, or even if you buy a secondhand house or apartment it is with the whole kitchen in it.
I enjoyed this video. 😊❤
As a Canadian, the DIY kitchen really threw me for a loop when my German husband and I were browsing apartments online before we moved 10 years ago. I was like, "these places look nice, but how come they never show a picture of the kitchen?". My husband looked at me puzzled, there was a kitchen in each listing! The room with the band of tiles on the wall. Another thing that goes along with the kitchen, are ceiling lights. Those too, also have to be bought and self-installed. Although with time, I think I prefer being able to pick out and customise kitchens and lighting. Window screens are also never in windows...I always have to be careful to close the windows before turning on the lights in summer, otherwise I'll wake up covered in mosquito bites.
Another luxury is getting your groceries bagged at the supermarket check out. In Germany, not only do you have to do it yourself, but you also have to be a speedy octopus before the next person's stuff comes flying into yours. Free water in restaurants is also another one.
As far as built-in closets and kitchens are concerned, I'd say that in Germany we consider both to be part of the "personal equipment" like bed, sofa, table, TV, etc., so it's not part of the apartment/house, but rather part of the household of the person renting it. It gives one the flexibility to select what look and features one likes, rather than having to stick with what the builder decided looks "best". Now, naturally, the world isn't black or white and a built-in closet or kitchen is really fitted to a given room size and layout and can't be easily moved to another house/apartment. Therefore, kitchens usually stay in place and are sold to the next tenant. Agreed, it's cumbersome, but it has a certain reason. We just love to equip our living environment with furniture that we personally like and don't simply accept what someone else liked... 😉
The "laundry room issue" is because of lack of space. One usually spends way less time in the laundry room than in the living or kid's room 😉, so priority is given to these areas. In rented apartmentens, there is usually no space in the basement, either, so usually the washer and dryer end in the bathroom - I have personally never seen one in the kitchen. If you own/rent a house, washer and dryer will usually in the basement - kinda like a laundry room....
#1 is so true. We moved to a newly built apartment 5 years ago, and literally had to design and build our kitchen from the ground up. It's beautiful now and we were happy how it turned out in the end, but the entire process of getting a kitchen designed and installed was time consuming and really expensive (around 10k euros).
I wouldn't like to move to an apartment where the most used room in it (kitchen) is NOT built exactly to my liking. In Poland and Austria new apartaments never come with an equipped kitchen, because people want to have it exactly how they like it. Taking a kitchen with you when you move from rental to rental is weird to me, though ;)
Fancy Americans with their kitchens!
😂😂😂😂
Fancy europeans with their quality food!
@@kasperkjrsgaard1447Why having a kitchen if not for preparing proper food! 😊
I don't represent the North Americans (I have to lump Canada in this, as their houses are similar to the US) with a fancy kitchen. I have an older house in Indiana, and my kitchen is so small, that I envy the Germans, French, and even the British with slightly bigger kitchens, and they're roomier, and fancy to me. I own a 74 year old house that has a poorly designed kitchen and utility room, that I barely have cabinets, and can not have a dishwasher installed. I barely have room for a fridge, and I'm forced to have a dinette set in my kitchen, because my house does not have a dining room. As for the utility room, I have my furnace and water heater in there, but for the washer and dryer, they're on opposite walls, because it wasn't designed for a washer and dryer at the time. My house was built after WW2, and washers and dryers were barely in people's homes at the time. So I have a bad layout for the set, and it's worse, as I had a front loader washer. So it's really tight. As Hayley might not like the washer being in the kitchen, I actually wished with my house , that the furnace and water heater were in a closet, and I had no utility room. I'd be ok with the washer and dryer being in my kitchen. This is common in most of Great Britain. My paternal grandmother had her washer in her kitchen when I was growing up in Indiana. After upgrading an 1800's house with no indoor plumbing, to one that was barely in the 1900's, had a size kitchen I envied, though there were few cabinets. She washed her clothes in the kitchen. She tried to use the clothes line as much as possible, as she did not have natural gas at her home for many years, and had to cook with an electric stove, and dry clothes with an electric clothes dryer (only when necessary, which was in the winter below freezing, raining, and if the clothes she washed needed to be dried immediately).
Wo wohnt ihr denn bitte alle?
Ich habe in Hamburg noch nie eine Wohnung ohne Küche besichtigt, also von rund 50 Wohnungen keine einzige ohne Küche...
It's not just that AC is expensive - many people in Germany don't have it because they just don't like it, and it's also considered unhealthy. When you go to a restaurant in the US, more often than not you're freezing your butt off - something that we find "ungemütlich" (uncomfortable). I was always wondering how people manage to live with all the AC in shops, offices and restaurants (plus the ice cubes in their drinks) without being sick all the time... 😅
I started wondering this too after moving to Germany - how did we (Americans) make it to adulthood!? LOL
I live in Germany and I love the AC in our house. 😅 Even if it's only running from June to August, it's great to have it. We have an electric garage door opener also. 😁 But I agree with you, both is not very common in Germany.
The service thing though ... I've just spent 3 weeks in the US for vacation and as always, I find the service in american restaurants a little bit too much. 😅 Usually the waitress shows up like 6 or 7 times, interrupting our conversation by asking something or bringing stuff, to be honest we were sometimes thinking "just leave us alone to eat in peace and quiet" 😬 I understand they are trained this way to earn their tip but I personally prefer the "slower" service in Europe (of course serving appetizers after the main course is a no go and in my experience it happens very rarely). For most europeans, eating out is more than "grabbing food and leaving quickly". It's about socializing, relaxing and having a good time so it's completely ok if it takes 2 hours. 🙂
I agree with the points made here, but I think the last point will change, because we must change to heat pumps anyway and the summers are getting way warmer all the time. Back in the days an AC simply wasn't necessary at all.
When we build our home in Germany in 2022, we were not allowed to build a central ac unit because of the requirements of our KfW Credit 😅. We only were allowed to get a central ventilation system. Now we have a decentral one in our open closet in the summer. No problems with our electricity bill because we use the excess of our photovoltaic system. We still pay 130 € a month because of the electricity needs of the winter. But we expirienced some interesting side effects. The ac pulls to much air out of our home and it is so sealed that doors and windows fly open when you open them. We therefore need to to open a window on „kipp“ to get enough air back in our home 🙈. German homes are not build for ac.
"hinterhof" made me LOL. You keep your house at 57F? WOW. I like your "wenn schon denn schon" view on that. I felt guilty visiting family in America when I turned it down to 70. The garage door openers were a great point, Germans don't realize the seriousness. Very strange thing - my next door neighbors installed an electric garage door opener. But they somehow missed the relevant part - the remote control for the cars. They have enough room for 3 cars in that garage, and every morning they type in a code, the door opens, they get in a car and drive off, leaving the garage door open all day as they come and go, and every night they lock the door by hand. WTH!?
Have you done a video on the Schrebergarten? These are so different then the US.
In Switzerland it‘s also normal to have installed kitchens in Apartments.😊
As an Austrian, I always expected that the "bad service" reputation Germany or Europe in general has, to be overstated. I have also never been to the US and probably would find it annoying not to be left alone while eating out or shopping.
However, in Dresden a couple of years ago, I was a bit bewildered to be greeted with a frown and stone silence in response to a friendly "Grüß Gott!" when entering a bakery. And a waiter had the hardest time to understand and fulfill an order of a glas of tap water to accompany my Eiskaffee.
So fun to listen to to your view of Germany. As a German I can agreee with close to everything 😂 keep em coming 🔥
I think Americans forget that the latitude in much of the US is the same as Spain, Portugal or even Northern Africa. It does not usually go above 30 C (86 F), and it gets cool at night. Also, Germany does not have high humidity. A German home can stay cool by opening windows in the early morning, or using a fan. Most people just stay in the shade or go swimming when it's hot (every town has a public swimming pool).
It's been getting hotter, though. In Germany, 30-35 celsius is considered hot (in the 80s in Fahrenheit). In the US, temperatures in the 90s to 100s are common, especially in the South or Southwest. Some people here in Germany get a small portable AC unit for the 2-3 weeks of hot temperatures, and last summer, fans were selling out at appliance stores!
Garages are pretty small, i.e.narrow in Germany. The majority park right next to it and use the garage as a storage. So I guess there is no real need for a remote opening...
As for service: we had once really bad service where the waiters took order for drinks but forgot to take our order for food. We waited half an hour while drinking our beverages, asked if somebody would take an order - nobody did. Then we just got up and left...without paying. Nobody even stopped us...
Garage door openers: I guess it depends when the house was built. They weren't common in the 1970s/80s. I grew up in a house built in the 1970s. The original manual garage door lasted more than 40 years, then my dad had the garage door and front door replaced, now there's a remote control. Not always more practical, now you don't have to look for the key but for the remote control thing of which there are two. And remember that the batteries don't run empty.
I assume most newer garages have remote controlled doors but there are still lots of old garages around. Just thinking of the garages that aren't built into houses but are in a central parking block. At some point it was very common to build garages like that. Nowadays it seems more common to have underground community garages for a number of homes together.
We live here in northern Germany in the countryside . We have a larger garden and enough space where we feel very comfortable. We don`t have a garage , but we have a carport , which is very practical. What I find strange is that some of our neighbors who own a garage still park their car outside so that they can drive off more quickly.😉🌹
We own a garage, but the gate isn't wide enough for modern cars. .So our garage is a bike garage.
lucky you! nord Germany is so lovely!!
I agree with you, Northern Germany has a lot to offer and if you live near the North Sea, all the better.@@shahlabadel8628
Mike, as a German I can confess that the German service is not the best. You sometimes do have to wait quite some time for food, drinks and bill. 100% agreed. Of course it depends on the restaurant and the situation, but you do have a point.
That being said, I absolutely don‘t want to be treated like a king at the restaurant. I want to be treated the way a human being is treated by another human being - with flaws, occasional bad days, bad moods, stress and all.
Waiters in Germany keep their dignity because they receive a fairly decent wage. I would happily donate 20% of my bill every time to keep it that way. But I’d definitely not pay for having a waiter crawl up my a.. How can you enjoy that?!
Verkaufsoffener Sonntag! I'm an American expat living in Germany for 30 years and I still can't get used to the fact that stores aren't open on Sunday.
I grew up in Germany and i hate it too!
It's workers' rights! I hope the day shops open on Sunday in Europe will never come!
Always on duty...? In the US, your boss can email you at any time outside of your working hours, even when you are on vacation (do Americans take vacations?)
@@matunusdonnerhammer3423 That is an important point. But does one's day off have to be a Sunday?
@@tic-tacdrin-drinn1505Ich glaube, es gibt nur 10 bezahle Urlaubstage im Jahr. Genauso die Krankheitstage (wobei das von Firma zu Firma unterschiedlich ist - manche bieten keine bezahlten Krankheitstage).
I agreee, that it is much more easier to move without a kitchen or a lot of closets. But what is, when you find after a long search a flat that you like, but the kitchen is so ugly? And I like it to put my plates and my cutlery in my own kitchen closets. And the same with the closets in my bedroom, I prefer to put my panties in my own closet. Its the same with a bed, who doesn´t prefer to sleep in his own bed? And I can choose myself the style of my kitchen and my closets. And I think that Germans don´t move as much as a lot of Americans. So, it is partially a benefit to move without so many furnitures, but on the other side I love my own things around me. And an AC is not really necessary here in Germany, because our houses are all build stone on stone and I think it is not as hot as in a wooden house. Also in the summer it is perhaps only 2-4 weeks really hot, sometimes not even that. And electricity is expensive here. And Garage door openers are getting more common, people who build a new house today mostly have an electric garage door opener. And I am living in a new build house with 9 flats in it and we have our washers and dryers in an extra room of the basement, where we have a lot of space to hang our laundry if we have no dryer. Why it is often in the kitchen or in the bathroom is another long story.
Halloooo Hayley from Vienna. What about car ports or parking space in front of the buildings where your apartment is?
With the kitchen, it’s often considered part of your furniture, not part of the flat. You would likely not consider it a luxury if you moved into a flat that already had a bed, would you? Nah, you wanna sleep in your own bed. Likewise, as many people rent long-term, they want their own custom kitchen. Having said that, it’s much more normal for a kitchen to stay in the flat if there is high fluctuation of renters, e.g. in student accommodation.
Dear Haley - I am with your mom on this.
77F is 25°C, that’s a perfect room temperature, especially in summer! Because once you get outside after being in a freezing room, the heat is likely to hit you like a ton of bricks.
At 70F (that’s 21.1°C!), I am freezing even in winter- I need my 22°C (72.6F) to function well. Those few degrees will not just make your home just as comfortable but also (in summer ) more environmentally friendly.
To the first point, kitchens: I think it may vary from where you live and if you rent from a private person or a company. My brothers and I have been moving around Germany for the past 10 years and all lived in various states, but we had never needed to buy a new kitchen, it was always provided by the landlord.
2. point: You don't have to tip in Germany. It's nice if you do, but the waiters etc. are simply doing their job. They get paid to do their job. I only tip, if I liked the person especially or if the service was beyond my expectations, but tipping for tippings sake is ridiculous.
3. Space can be a burden or a curse. More space means more distance to others and makes it easier for people to stay in their own little bubble without caring too much about others. If you don't have to interact with neighbors, you might not know how to positively deal with neighbors, if you ever need to. It's also easier to stay away from "unwanted people" and keep up any prejudices, because it's less likely to be meaningfully confronted with different cultures. Space allows you to seperate "your" people from others.
Also more space needs more maintenance. A garden can be a lot of work, a big house as well.
Having less space for yourself, allows you to be confronted by yourself. How much space does a person truly need. How much do you need? Expecting everything bigger to be better is a commercial lie and (at least from my pov) it seems the people of the US have accepted that lie as truth.
4. Built in closets are fine for small storage spaces, but not every bedrooms needs a walkable closet. So much space wasted and just another corner for people to throw their stuff into and clutter up their life.
5. If the washer is built into the kitchen it's usually in old buildings, because one: they don't have magically more space to add on and two: the water pipes are already in the kitchen (and the bathroom). An extra laundry room is a waste of space imo. Why would I need an extra room just for one or two appliances? Again it's just more space to gather unnecessary stuff and clutter.
6. Central AC is a luxury because it's simply not needed in Germany. Most houses, especially newer ones are pretty good insulated and keep the house warm in the winter and cool in the summer. If it's too warm you may be able to strategiacally open certain windows to have a nice natural airflow or you just buy an electric fan for the room you occupy the most. No need to blast the whole house with cold air, if a little wind is already enough.
Ok. I'm Slovene so all my info about Germany is from a few visits over the years. The service can be a little hit or miss at times, but I think it's the patience of the people that lets an establishment operate like that if I go to a restaurant that ignores me as a Slovene, I would tell them they can expect me to badmouth their establishment and never return. Usually, establishments like that don't last the year in Slovenia.
As for the AC, yeah that's a luxury here too. We had to get one installed because my mother is 68 and she has a difficult time with the heat in the summer, so when it's above 27 degrees we turn it on.
Yeah. I remember that kitchens are usually always built in the apartments or houses in the US.. ain’t that way in Deutschland.. Tips in Germany… I usually round it up and pay like 30 Euro instead of 25 if I have it. In the US you usually pay at least a 15-20% tip.. from what I heard… then house purchasing.. well the US is 50 times bigger in land mass than Germany.. so yeah house and land are cheaper over there.. I have a laundry room here at my new apartment in the city.. so it is a luxury.. and a balcony too.. I could get a garage at my old apartment if I needed it.. but I don’t have a car.. yeah I miss having AC‘s here.. hell my electric bill‘s 70 Euro a month.. just electric.. the gas is included in my rent.. lol
Regarding kitchens in Germany it really seems to depend on the area but also how old the building is. From my personal anecdotal experience from looking for an appartment in Berlin there seem to be a bigger chance for an Einbauküche in older buildings. No clue why, maybe it's annoying to assure it is in good shape before the next person moves in or many tenants decided to get rid of the old one themselves eventually and want their own ones? I can only speculate. Personally I find it super convenient.
I think it is required for the landlord to provide a stove and a kitchen sink as bare minimum though, in Germany. I never saw an appartment that was actually entirely empty.
No requirement for the landlord, mine was without one.
And personally I find it better to get my own, than a preowned, especially with old kitchens you got the problem that they need a lot more energy, than modern ones. And are not tailored to your needs.
@@Rafaela_S. Huh, interesting. Guess I just had a lot of luck so far. Regarding things needing more energy, in my experience built in kitchens don't necessarily include a refrigirator or a dishwasher. (It depends on the specific appartment.) It's more about having cupboards and stuff, storage space. The only electric thing provided in our new appartment was the stove/oven and that was replaced by the landlord before we moved in.
An own kitchen can be tailored to your needs, that is true, and you don't have to deal with whatever damage previous tenants caused to the furniture. This is certainly a disadvantage. However, getting an entirely new kitchen is also massively expensive. I'm just a simple freelancer, I couldn't possibly afford this and would have to live without any kitchen furniture for months, unless I could get stuff second hand. If one is provided for you, you don't have to bother with this right when you move, which is expensive enough on its own. It's also better for families who have enough other things on their plate while moving than this. Should you want a different one, you could still get one later, you'd just need to have some sort of arrangement with your landlord about it first.
Not required to provide.
No it is not required. Every flat I looked at either had nothing in it or you could buy off the existing one.
It depends on the Bundesland. In Hamburg it is required.
A laundry room in germany called a "Waschküche" is still a normal thing in german Houses, predominantly on the countryside. Not in appartments though, since space is a premium.
When it comes to space, I think the difference between rural areas and cities is larger than between the US and Germany. Living is affordable for normal people in rural areas, but not in Munich and not in New York.
As far as service goes, I think it is just fine the way it is Europe and I don't even want to imagine the working conditions of service personell in the US.
Here in Austria electronic garage openers are fairly common in private houses but a little less common in garages that come with appartments.
Air conditioning in private homes is almost unknown here in Austria. If it were not for American TH-cam content I wouldn't even know such a thing exists. Air conditioning is rather common in shopping centers and other publich buildings though and in almost all cars.
You could add automatic transmission to the list. It is getting more common and is the standard for electric cars but still not as wide-spread in Germany as it is in the US.
electric garage door openers is standard in germany. maybe some retirees don't want to update their 50 years old garage but new home all have them
Washing in Germany is really easy, in Switzerland, I moved to Aarua with my washing machine, it was forbidden to use it. We had 1 washing machine for the whole apartment building, I could wash all 14 days...in Zürich we could wash 1 time a week. It is really bad.
11:42 "in Germoney electricity prices are a little bit higher than in the US"..only double the price considering the average. I pay 48 cent for a kWh, this is more than 3x the here mentioned Florida price tag..👹
Yeah but depending on where you live it can be a lot higher (like 70 cents) so that is why I said double :P
My komment is not abt. the topic,but ur new hairstyle is great. 🙂
I totally understand, that in the US an ac is needed at some point but I can't understand how IT is used (sometimes). People wear shorts and Shirts in the house in Winter and in the summer they wear a cardigan in the house. That is what I call waste of energy!!!
I would add young people having a drivers license. In the US it’s pretty much a rite of passage but I found in Germany it’s something taken extremely seriously and is expensive to go through all the steps to get one.
Air Conditioning: If your apartment in Germany has no AC, of course you can buy yourself a mobile AC- for about 100 to 150 Euro you will find a good device. But here in Germany we have maximal 6 weeks of heat in a year (when you live in the south, here in the Northern Germany Hamburg/Schleswig Holstein mostly even less), in my case a ventilator and cold drinks are enough for my apartment.
I have been wondering for a while why so many people have or want to have an inbuilt closet system. I'm 58 and I never had it in my life, nor my parents or my family. We moved quite often and it's way more practical to simply have a closet that you can take with you. And there's so many choices for closets, you can even get some old or antique ones which really look great in your bedroom.
I don't understand how it can be more practical to purchase, assemble, disassemble and move a "closet" rather than to just have one in your new home automatically.
@@LythaWausW Thank you, I now understand better. It seems to be about convenience, as so many things in the US 😀 I usually hire a moving company and they will take care of my closet. And it's not about being practical for me, it's about choice and about this piece of furniture being mine.
For the built in clostes, just think about that we in germany have massive stone walls while in the US you have just your paper walls and don't need to build then 1 meter thick walls everywhere just to have some closets in there. In the end it wastes more space (what you of course also have much more of) than having normal walls and closets outside of them.
I mean, i guess some houses even have a whole extra 3 x 3 meter "closet" just for their shoes and around that you have your paper walls where you can punch a whole in with no problems and play hide and seek in them, or maybe find some dead bodys and ghosts 😄😄
I saw a TH-cam-Video from some guy who mentioned the differences between Gemans and the US-people, too: There was one thing compared to airconditioning: Stoßlüftung...;-)
3:30 yup, the service quality in gastronomy absolutely plumeted during the pandemic
Kitchens are seen as furniture in rental apartments in Germany.
Customer Service? Was ist Customer Service?
Space? Home owner? Try California.
I have AC here in Germany, I think it is being uninformed about it. I have solar panels, and in the summer I make my own power. It’s cheaper to heat with it too than burning gas
You must have just had bad luck with that restaurant. I have been living in Germany for over 4 decades (!) and have never had the Vorspeise brought after the main coutdr. And the drinks? They usually bring them out right away, so that you are generally finished and have to order another one by the time your food arrives!
I think a luxury in Germany is having a restaurant server who is actually paid a living wage, so I can use my tipping to express my satisfaction or lack thereof with the service, while here in the US I feel obliged to tip generously because the server gets paid $2.60 an hour and therefore lives off the tips. It is also a luxury in Germany to be able to eat in peace and sit and talk for a while, while here the server takes plates away as soon as only one person is done eating and brings the bill way before everyone is done eating.
Actually in the USA the minimum wage is $7.25 - $15 an hour... and servers have to make that much money. In Florida the minimum wage is $13 but the minimum tipped wage is $12 an hour.
Like Mike said- you are 90% of the time going to tip in Germany anyways. The difference is a few dollars which for Mike is worth it to be able to have minimal mistakes be made.
Also bringing the bill before everyone is done eating is bad etiquette in the USA. I was a server/bartender at many different restaurants and that is the number one thing we are taught ;)
@@HayleyAlexis Well, I wished they taught that to servers here in Indiana too. But bringing the bill before everyone is done eating is, in my experience, standard practice, both at the chain restaurants, but also at locally owned places.
The minimum wage in IN is $7.25, the federal minimum wage, the minimum for tipped workers is $2.13. Yes, the employer is supposed to make up the difference if the server does not get at least $5.12 in tips per hour, but from what I hear, employers 'forgetting' about that seems to be a reason for many disputes. And even if the server gets that money, those $5.12 are not a real tip aka bonus given to the server for a good job, but base income paid by the customer instead of the employer. Also, full-time work at that rate results in an annual income of $15.080. In this town you can barely rent a one-bedroom apartment for ten months for that...
Der Service hat in letzten 20 Jahren extrem nachgelassen.
The washing mashinr in kitchen is a compromise if there is too little space in the bathroom because of the watersources. A build in closet can be a good thing. Kn the other hand you are not that flexible how to use the room. Its not that a build in closet doesn't need no m2 of space.
I could afford ac but I hate it. It's so often too cold in air conditioned rooms. When it is very warm outside I need it warm inside too. Otherwise I become sick. I often can not even go shopping in summer because it is just too cold in the shops.
Rule of thumb: AC is nice if you are the one who can set the target temperature to suit you.
For example, in our recently built house, we cool and heat everything with AC. This is possible because it is a low-energy house and the electricity is supplied by the photovoltaic system. When we use it to cool in midsummer, we set the target temperature just slightly lower than the outside temperature; then it feels comfortable, but you don't catch a cold.
I think it is only normal in bavaria to not have a kitchen in a rented home. In my 46 years of my life, I never saw once an appartment without a kitchen. And I worked as a chef in a restaurant and we never got the salad out after the main course or something. It is normal that the service personel calls the kitchen when the table has finished one course and is ready for the next one.
Another thing that would be considered a luxury in Germany is a freezer with an ice dispenser on the outside
God i wish germany had AC tho ... i disagree about not needing it! 😂 Ofcourse in Florida and Arizona etc. its gonna be basically hot almost all year round ... but those summer months in germany are getting brutal with climate change. As a non floridian im not built for above 35 C😢
I don‘t know about your home. Maybe it has really bad insulation, maybe you keep your windows open all day long or you stop heating very late in the year… I can’t tell.
All I can say: I always wear a woollen cardigan in my house during summer because otherwise it‘s too COLD in here for me. My home is very well insulated and I only air out early in the morning and late in the evening. This way the temperatures inside my home usually don‘t rise above 18 degrees Celsius in summer. Our living room is warmer in winter than it is in summer. I’m wearing my cardigan right now, because I am inside, and when I step outside, it‘s way too warm for wearing it. The temperature in here will rise a bit during the upcoming months, but it will stay relatively cold in here. Definitely no need for an AC in my home.
You said your mum lives in a 4 bedroom 3 bathroom apartment? In Germany you probably would find a 4 bedroom apartment with one bathroom and a guest toilet, but not more. If you live in a two or more storey house you might find bathrooms on two levels, but usually not more. Fellow germans, correct me if I'm wrong.
So you are generally correct. I did however live in a German home that had 3 bedrooms and 3.5 bathrooms.
My kitchen is from Ikea too, there really is nothing special about it and I paid more than 15.000 Euros for it ten years ago. When we startet to plan the kitchen and I looked at the price tags I thought it would be maybe 5k, but then there were so many additional costs… so maybe the guy did pay a lot more for his kitchen than you think.
I looked it up after we left his apartment and I am pretty sure it was about 3000 euros... So no he was trying to scam us
Having a lot of bathrooms is also an american "Luxury" for a german. Like everytime I see the plans for american homes, one third of the rooms are bathrooms. and I don't mean the small guest toilets, I mean Bathrooms with at least a shower.
I don't like American style closets, tbh. Why? Because, unless you'd have a spacious sort of walk-in-closet, it doesn't offer me enough space for my textiles. I have a huge 2,70m (height) by 3,80m (frontal length) wardrobe in my bedroom which hardly fits all my clothes. No way a normal sized U.S. closet could do that job. Also, with a wardrobe you purchase and install on your own, your are much more free to make use of the space the room has to offer, such as placing the bed where you'd prefer it most, installing the wardrobe where it might make most sense, etc. In the U.S., placing the bed often is limited to only one wall (one wall might have the door, another the closet, a third perhaps the door to an en-suite), so you often end up having the bed pushed up against the window(s), sometimes even blocking the natural light from coming in the room. I find that horrible and also against all Feng-Shui. So, no thank you to these highly lauded, in my opinion wrongly so, build-in closets. Sorry.