Oh yeah, this entire blog has been a thinly-veiled anti
gentrification rant: The Impending
Gentrification of Berlin, The Hipster Invasion, Landlords aka Fucklords, and
The Current and Very In-Your-Face Gentrification of Berlin. This blog is a redneck swamp hat with a wide
brim shading very angry eyes. Donuts
dangle from strings around the brim.
It’s Fucklord time again.
After yet another one year sublet, we found ourselves looking for another
flat. Not because we paid the rent on
time every month for the entire year, not because we never had any neighbor
complaints, not because we have money in the bank and a spotless rental history—but
because ‘it is a free market and we can
rent to whomever we choose’ sayeth the Fucklord.
Oh yes, our hauptmieter gave up her contract behind our
backs and the Fucklord saw the chance to kick us out as well, saying ‘you are
not our tenants.’ Our hauptmieter told
us from her year abroad in France
that she was sorry that the Fucklord hadn’t chosen us. It wasn’t anything personal, you see, they
‘probably just want to raise the rent and get a commission from the next
renter.’
Nothing personal? Jesus fuck.
So off we went into the thick of things again. Each time we try to get another flat the
rents go up 50%, the lines outside the flat viewings get longer and the new
metric fuckton of additional paperwork fells another rain forest.
If you are looking for a flat in Berlin,
watch out for the poisonous sentence ‘the viewing will be on such-and-such date
at such-and-such time.’ This means you
will be standing outside the flat (most likely in the rain) waiting for a
beady-eyed bald man (most likely in the pub) with a group of 30-40 feckless
feckers just like yourself. If you
choose to view a flat that is NOT in Prenzlauer Berg, Friedrichshain, Mitte, or
Kreuzberg, you will have to wait outside with slightly fewer feckless
feckers. Maybe only 10-20.
We were waiting outside the shabby, dreary-looking 1940s concrete
slab down the road from Mauerpark. The
usual suspects gathered: hipsters,
students, Italians, Spaniards and Spanish-Italian hipster students. The beady-eyed bald German appeared late as
usual. He led the group of 30 up the
stairs and held out his arm. If he says ‘Heil Fucklord!’ I will strangle
him with his own belt and take his keys, I thought to myself. He did not.
Instead he had us all wait in the stairwell while he showed people in
one or two at a time.
This thing must be a
tiny fucking shoebox! Only 2 at a time
can view it! The first couple came
out after only 2 minutes and the next pair was let in. The first couple was grasping an application
form in their sweaty hands. They dropped
to the ground in the stairs and started filling out the form. By the time it was our turn to get into the
flat, it was in fact a bit of a shoebox.
But there was no reason to keep us waiting; 7 or 8 could have easily fit
inside at once. But it is the Fucklord’s
market in Berlin. The Fucklord can arrive 30 minutes late and
make 30 people sit in the stairs filling out paperwork while mumbling moo-hoo-ha-ha-haaaaaaaaaa under his
fetid breath.
When I went to look at the living room I saw why there was a
flat tour limit: a pregnant woman sat on
the couch watching television with a very sour look on her face. I know,
honey: German tv is pretty scheisse.
I asked if we could submit the form online by email, and the
beady-eyed Deutschbag smiled and shook his head. “In the
STAIRS!” If we wanted it badly
enough we would have to cop a squat, open up a vein and write it with our own
blood. Pens were not provided. We decided we were through with this dog and
pony show. We told beady baldy that we
would not be sitting in any fucking stairs to apply for any fucking shitbox for
any over-inflated price. On the way down the stairs the usual suspects scrawled
on their papers in the stairwell. ‘What
do I put here?’ one hipster asked.
‘That’s your boss’s info’ said the other hipster. I couldn’t get around them; even though they
are skinny fucks in skinny jeans, side by side they are a minor roadblock. As I tried to step over them, my boot hovered
for a bit. If I stepped too far too
fast, my bum ankle would send me crashing down on the poor Italian couple below
the hipsters.
My boot hung in the air. I was
tempted to put my size 13 right in the middle of the hipster’s application—or on
his empty fucking skull. One of the
hipsters looked up and saw the impending danger. They shimmied to the side just slightly and
let me by. Then they returned to their feverish
scrawls. They would get this flat. Oh yeah.
