Community laundry room (Switzerland)

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The communal laundry room is a laundry room that is shared by all or some of the residents of an apartment building.

Definition and demarcation of terms

A laundry room is understood to be the overall system for washing and drying . This includes all the corresponding “premises, devices and devices”.

A variant of such a laundry room is the communal laundry room. A communal laundry room is shared by at least some of the residents of an apartment building. Such a laundry room consists of one room or several separate rooms which can be used for washing , tumbling or drying or a combination thereof.

Washing facilities in one's own apartment, which are provided by the landlord or the resident, or a combination of, for example, a separate washing tower in the apartment and a communal drying room in the basement, must be distinguished from communal laundry rooms . Services for drying laundry outdoors are not part of a communal laundry room, such as fixed drying racks outdoors or hooks on the balcony .

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Location and division

In older buildings, a communal laundry room is usually located in the basement outside the insulation perimeter ; in newer buildings, the kitchen is increasingly on the ground floor , not least due to Minergie requirements. In rare cases it is in the screed .

An apartment building with a shared laundry room can consist of one or more laundry rooms. A washroom consists of one or two washing machines and one or two tumblers, although the use of tumblers is not yet standard everywhere. Clotheslines are permanently hung in the washroom or in a separate drying room, and a Secomat (active drying with room air dryer ) is installed there with increasing tendency .

As an alternative to divided in several rooms, a single large laundries can laundry are provided. These are found - with a decreasing tendency - mostly in larger high-rise buildings in urban areas or in cooperative buildings. There are three or more washing machines and tumble dryers installed in a laundromat.

Washing schedule

Usually, every resident of a property is given a time slot when they can use the laundry room exclusively for themselves. This is ensured by a reservation system, the washing plan or the laundry room plan. Whether a washing plan is introduced and how it is designed depends on the landlord, the caretaker, the tenants or the floor owners. If a washing schedule is missing, either the first-come-first-served principle applies or, in the case of houses with low fluctuation, customary law is invoked.

There are two ways to create a wash schedule:

  • Registered mail: The resident enters his or her washing times in a calendar hung in the laundry room or an electronic terminal. There “free gaps” are filled independently.
  • Fixed times: The administration or the caretaker defines, sometimes in consultation with the residents, fixed, regularly recurring time windows for all residents for one year or until further notice. In the past, it was common to have plans in which a party had the kitchen exclusively for themselves for a whole day, but long intervals of two to three weeks were common. Today, weekly intervals are more common, but the resident only gets a few hours' time window (e.g. in the morning, in the afternoon or in the evening).

A common cause of conflict between users is failure to follow the washing schedule. This situation is usually avoided by inserting a laundry room key. This enables access to the laundry room and must be thrown into the successor's mailbox by the predecessor. So third parties cannot wash in between.

According to a survey by Homegate, 75% of those questioned are satisfied with their washing schedule.

Some apartment buildings that have a washing schedule provide additional washing machines in the same room or in separate rooms for “washing in between”, which can be used without reservation.

Washing times

Overnight and Sunday rest, which includes washing, is prescribed by house rules in many properties. If such an order applies, the power supply to the washing machine and dryer can be disconnected by a timer at these times. Properties where 24-hour operation are permitted are rather rare.

Up until the 2000s and 2010s, the electricity supply to washing machines and tumblers in many municipalities was centrally controlled by the energy supplier during lunchtime at peak electricity times, meaning that washing could not be done during off-peak times, usually around noon. Today, most electricity suppliers no longer have a lunch break or they are only active in the winter half of the year. In some places it is possible to lift a ban for a fee.

Consumption billing

The costs caused by the use of the laundry room can either be billed as a lump sum via the general ancillary costs or parts thereof individually. While the service subscription or cleaning must run through the utility bill, the electricity and water consumption can be billed individually. The latter is common today.

If consumption is billed individually, a system for consumption billing is usually installed:

  • Washing card system or card system : Every washing machine and tumbler has an associated card reader. Each user can add credit to their card at the caretaker or via a terminal. The machine is activated with the credit card and the corresponding credit is deducted. Some modern systems also accept major debit and credit cards . With such a system, bills are usually based on the washing and tumbling time.
  • Washing machine counter switch -key, coding key or code card : By inserting a code card, the electricity consumption of the respective machine is switched to its own electricity meter , while the water runs through the utility bill.
  • Coin or token counter : The system, which is in decline, works via a classic coin or token counter, in which the machine is activated for a certain period of time for each coin inserted or - in the case of coin-operated electricity meters - for a certain power consumption, for example 1 kilowatt hour . In the past, 20 centimes coins were common, today tokens are mostly used for reasons of break-ins.

Today the acceptance of a washing machine counter switch by the landlords is low, since from their point of view the electricity consumption is only a fraction of the actual costs. With a card system, on the other hand, any time tariff can be defined, although from a legal point of view the landlord is only allowed to bill for water and electricity consumption via such a system (the rest goes through the usual ancillary costs).

Drying with the help of a Secomat is usually not charged, so that residents are not tempted to hang their laundry in the apartment to avoid the corresponding costs.

Social aspects

Dissemination and acceptance

In the 2010s, communal laundry kitchens were very common in Switzerland, both in existing buildings and in new buildings. In the case of new buildings, this is particularly found in houses in the low price segment or in buildings with many small apartments. Drying rooms are available as standard in all price segments.

In newer apartments or for conversions in the higher price segment, connections for their own washing tower are prepared or retrofitted in the apartments. When retrofitting, existing laundry rooms are usually continued to operate, giving the resident a choice. Landlords sometimes provide connections for installing their own washing machines even in cheaper apartments, among other things so that tenants do not connect these systems without authorization, with the risk that the connection is not made properly.

In older properties there are mostly facilities for hanging laundry outdoors, but this is rarely offered in new buildings of the 21st century.

Most residents want washing facilities in their own homes, communal laundry rooms do not meet the needs of today's population. On the other hand, from the landlord's point of view, communal laundry rooms should be considered the space-saving and ecologically better option.

Conflicts

In order to prevent conflicts, most properties with a laundry room have house rules that include the laundry room or separate laundry room rules.

Nevertheless, conflicts arise. According to a survey carried out by Homegate in 2015, 79 percent of those questioned had been involved in conflicts in connection with the laundry room several times a year. Such conflicts are seldom massive or even go to court.

The following causes of conflict are common:

  • insufficient cleaning of the devices by the predecessor (tumbler filter, Secomat container, ...)
  • non-compliance with the house rules or the laundry room rules (e.g. non-compliance with the washing schedule, removing the laundry of the previous guest, ...)
  • Disagreements regarding the washing schedule (e.g. single workers or double earners usually prefer to wash in the evening, which does not always work)
  • Other habits or irregularities (leaving windows open or lights on, failure to hand over the laundry room keys, ...)

Community laundry room in culture

The communal laundry room and the associated regulations are referred to as Swiss peculiarities, since such kitchens are unusual abroad or are in sharp decline.

The laundry room system, the regulations, which sometimes seem absurd from a foreign point of view, the conflicts and the resulting forced communication to resolve the conflict by means of "paper and pencil" are sometimes satirized and processed in the literature. Hugo Loetschers wrote the book The Laundry Key with the statement that the laundry room rules manifest the democratic understanding and social behavior of the Swiss:

“In this country, the laundry room key is not simply an object of use that opens the space that is called the laundry room and where the machines are located, which facilitate the process, which is called 'washing'. Oh no. The laundry room key opens up a completely different area in this country; it offers access to something deeper. "

- Hugo Loetscher : The laundry room key

Blogs, mainly from expats living in Switzerland, also deal with the Swiss laundry room system.

literature

  • Barbara Josephy, Jürk Nipkow, Eric Bush: Washing and drying in an apartment building. Final report. Ed .: City of Zurich, Office for Buildings, Sustainable Building Department. Zurich August 2012. online (PDF) .
  • Hugo Loetscher : The laundry room key or what - if God were Swiss. Diogenes, Zurich 1988, ISBN 3-257-21633-5 . (For the first time under the title: The laundry room key and other Helvetica. Diogenes, Zurich 1983, ISBN 3-257-01637-9 .)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k Barbara Josephy, Jürg Nipkow, Eric Bush: Washing and drying in an apartment building . Final report. Ed .: City of Zurich, Office for Buildings, Sustainable Building Department. Zurich 2012 ( topten.ch [PDF; accessed on March 8, 2017]).
  2. ↑ a b Taboo phrases in the laundry room. (No longer available online.) Bluewin, archived from the original on March 9, 2017 ; accessed on March 8, 2017 (Swiss Standard German). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.bluewin.ch
  3. ↑ Andrea Fischer: From washing bans and rules for carpet beating. In: Tages-Anzeiger. November 20, 2016, accessed on March 8, 2017 (Swiss Standard German).
  4. ↑ Annina Mathis: 11:00 a.m .: The washing machine stops in Swiss households. In: 24 hour Switzerland - history around the clock. Swiss Radio and Television SRF, July 17, 2016, accessed on March 8, 2017 .
  5. ↑ At peak times, the power is simply turned off. In: Aargauer Zeitung. December 1, 2010, accessed on March 8, 2017 (Swiss Standard German).
  6. ↑ Alexander Lanner: The daily blackout in the laundry room. Zürcher Unterländer, March 5, 2016, accessed on March 8, 2017 (Swiss Standard German).
  7. ↑ Gabriela Baumgartner: How expensive can a wash cycle be? Swiss Radio and Television SRF, September 1, 2015, accessed on March 8, 2017 (Swiss Standard German).
  8. ↑ Four out of five are annoyed about the laundry room. Battle zone tenement. 20 Minuten, November 7, 2015, accessed on March 8, 2017 (Swiss Standard German).
  9. ↑ Bojan Stula: Combat Zone Laundry Room - When quarrels between neighbors degenerate. In: Basellandschaftliche Zeitung. March 8, 2016, accessed on March 8, 2017 (Swiss Standard German).
  10. ↑ Gabriela Baumgartner: Take someone else's laundry out of the machine? Swiss Radio and Television SRF, September 1, 2012, accessed on March 8, 2017 (Swiss Standard German).
  11. ↑ Roger Köppel : “Remain humble and independent” . Interview with Nick Hayek . In: Die Weltwoche . No.  30/2011 ( weltwoche.ch [accessed on March 16, 2017]): “The Swiss laundry room inspires me because it is so unique in the world. ... The laundry room is a symbol of Switzerland "
  12. ↑ Jens-Rainer Wiese: There comes the moving man who can't restrain himself - moving to Switzerland. In: Blogwiese. September 20, 2005, accessed March 8, 2017 .
  13. ^ Judit Solt, David Strohm: The laundry room democracy. The true face of Switzerland is revealed in the apartment building. Despite all prophecies of doom, living together in a community also has its good points. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung. September 3, 2006, accessed on March 8, 2017 (Swiss Standard German).
  14. ↑ The laundry room order. News.ch explains Switzerland. In: news.ch. VADIAN.NET, October 30, 2014, accessed on March 8, 2017 (Swiss Standard German).

Remarks

  1. ↑ The washing tower is a term used in Switzerland for the combination of a washing machine and a tumbler placed on it . Such an installation in the bathroom is the usual variant if washing is done in your own home.
  2. ↑ Secomat is a registered trademark of Kruger, Degersheim, is in Switzerland colloquially synonymous for all air-dryer applied
  3. ↑ Examples: Every week in the evening from 4:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. every 3 weeks on Thursdays, all day, etc.
  4. ↑ For example in the laundry room regulations of F + Partner AG: "The key (if there is a general laundry room key) must be given to the next laundry room user at the end of the laundry day by 9 p.m. at the latest." f-partner.ch
  5. ↑ The energy supplier Regio Energie Solothurn, for example, has a lunch block from 11:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m., which can be lifted for a monthly fee of 5 francs per kilowatt of power regioenergie.ch .