Twelve tasks of an immigrant ­– part 1

I name this entry after one of the twelve tasks of Asterix, in which he explored the depths of beaurocracy.

Here I describe the adventures, which any foreigner, willingly or not, must experience. Seemingly simple things like setting up a bank account, finding a flat, or setting up internet, combined with German customs and requirements can drive one mad.

(The beginning of this entry was written in 2017, fresh after moving.)

Before the flat

So we're in Germany now. As we start looking for a flat, we need to answer the burning question: where to stay? We have several options: under a bridge, at a friend's, at a hotel, or short rental.

Hotels are expensive. But if we can afford it, the matter is then pretty much settled. If we're not imbued with the touch of Midas, however, this will not be an option. The bridge and friends are also unnecessary to delve into: those are for people who can deal with the matter already.

That leaves us with short term rental. Airbnb seems most popular today, however I had used 9flats before. There we can rent a room or flat from people who don't currently find another use for them. The best thing about them is that they are much cheaper than hotels. What may count against them is that often the owners would stay together in the same flat, and that not all advertised places offer internet access (that's a peculiarity of the German culture, it seems).

Short term rental is still expensive, making it rather unsuitable to stay in this arrangement forever.

Flat

The basic necessity. There's no way of settling without having a long term place.

Again, I presume the reader doesn't have a truckload of money to buy a house, so we're looking for a flat or a room in a city.

A room

Soon after we start looking for a room in Germany, we will encounter the term "WG". It means Wohngemeinschaft, "common living". To summarize this article, WG is a flat where a few stuent-aged people live together. They form a team, but are not inseparable. Each has a room – I don't remember ever seeing an example where more than one person would occupy a single room – but they share the kitchen, and the bathroom. Occasionally it includes a living room, a garden, or a balcony.

Another important term is Zweck-WG. Similar on the surface: a bunch of rooms, shared kitchen. The article points out the difference: the occupants don't care about being friends. I have seen one of those flats. 7 rooms, where all kinds of immigrants and stuents lived, some even older. Low rent. This seems sensible for someone who just got into Germany spends most of their time at work, and doesn't have a family here yet.

Zwischenmiete is another word that will come to attention to those who stay in Germany only for a short time. Those ads appear when the flat owner leaves for some limited time, but wants someone to take care of the flat while they are gone.

As for WGs, they are sometimes directed towards a particular group. There are ads saying: women only! not if you're over 30! vegetarians please! students! Russians welcome! smokers need not apply!

Advertisements

The majority of a typical advertisement describe the personalities and the life stories of those in the flat, the house rules, and what kind of poeple are welcome. They are meant to figure out if we're a match. They often include questions the applicant should answer in the reply: "Do you enjoy parties?", "Do you smoke", etc. It's hard to shake the impression that you should attach a motivation letter with a CV.

A lot of ads don't provide furniture, which can simplify ("simplify") the search. Even when the furniture is provided, they need to be paid for. Not a deposit, but something akin to a usage fee, but independent of the length of the stay.

The majority of ads are written in German only. Better get a dictionary. There's usually only a handful of ads with an English version. Despite that, most advertisements include a list of languages spoken in the flat. After German, English dominates, but there's a good variety: Portugese, Russian, Turkish, are just some examples.

Tips

Calling by phone gives the best results. That means knowing some German already, and if we try English anyway, we have to understand that the other side is unlikely to speak BBC English.

Apart from giving us the option to send an SMS, or the system built in to the web site, some ads ask for WhatsApp contact under their phone number. When I tried to send those an SMS, I never received an answer, though.

Scams

When looking through the ads, we may come across those that have both an English and a German text. Unfortunately, those need to be approached with special care, because they often end up being scams. If you get a message which doesn't quote your reply, or one that can't be traced to any particular ad, there's no point in reading it. The owner will be "on holiday in India" and "there's no way the room can be viewed", but they nevertheless ask for personal information in order to make a contract and start the money transfer.

In practice

My trouble begain pretty much immediately. Cologne is rather full in people compared to flats, meaning that being picky is not an option, and that viewings are organized in groups. I managed to find a room after only a couple of weeks, but I've been told 2 months is usual, and I heard stories of over 6 months. The search is exhausting and time consuming, so I'm glad I managed to get one fast. Three weeks, 30 emails, and 10 phone calls resulted in 5 viewings.

Perhaps I didn't search widely enough. I used mostly https://www.wg-gesucht.de/ and http://studenten-wg.de/ . Or perhaps I had too high standards: I needed a furnished room no more expensive than 450 Euro per month.

Furniture

It turns out that rooms in Germany are usually unfurnished, and much more often than in Poland. It could be beneficial for someone who already has their own stuff and doesn't want to change, but if you want to avoid the work associated with the shopping and transportation, this is rather annoying. A WG can hold another surprise of having to pay a couple hundred Euro up front for the kitchen furniture. Yup, they can be missing too, when the flat is new. As if this wasn't enough, the deposit is unlike the Polish version. Instead of one or two months, it's often a year. In case of any doubts, the renter will want to see our income.

as you can see, in Germany you may need to be quite well off in order for others to accept your money :(

Money

If we're talking about that, then the rent depends on the region. Cities have higher rents than elsewhere, Bavaria makes it higher still. I had paid between 275 and 450 Euro per month + fees across the couple of years I've been here.

Rent without fees included is called "kalt(miete)", and with them in, it's "warm". Think of it as of heating: if we don't pay, we'll feel cold, otherwise warm. Apart from the heating, the fees usually include trash and water. Often elctricity too, but that's not universal.

Internet

An internet connection is not "warm". That's something we have to ensure ourselves. Sadly, Germany loses to Poland tragically in this area. Not only is an Internet connection comparatively expensive, it's also slow. 35Mb/s for 30 Euro is not a great deal in 2021. But that's not all. The installation is the absolute worst. Get ready for a month of waiting. Doesn't matter that it was supposed to take two weeks. What are you gonna do, switch to a competitor? They are just the same.

If you think you're going to get clever and use a phone, let me crush your hopes now. You're not getting 6 GiB for 30zł in prepaid. The prices are more like 1 Euro per 1 GiB (okay I'm not up to date on this). If you want to work from home, you better stuff that wallet beforehand.

Oh, and if you ask your neighbors to share their connection, get ready that they might mumble something about child porn. I'm not kidding, this happened. Thankfully, only once.