The new landlord

We have a new landlord. The word 'landlord' is funny because it involves the word 'lord', which is a word only used in religion, sarcasm, and Lord of the Rings, or Lord of the Dance. But as English speakers we use it to describe the person who lets you live in a place he owns if you pay him rent money every month. It's like a medieval feudal system; we are the serfs.

A few months ago, all the tenants in our building got a letter stating that the place was up for sale. It said that prospective buyers might come by to visit, and that if anyone wanted to purchase their apartment, that was possible too. How much does an apartment in Hannover run for? I looked at some listings, and it seems like a place like ours would cost around 170,000 euros.

It's unlikely that anyone here would buy their apartment, though. It's not because our neighbors can't afford it, but because Germans usually rent. To us Americans, it seems odd that a middle-class person or family could live a lifetime renting from someone else. The right to own property is one of those things that our founding fathers were fighting for. They'd had enough of serfdom back in the old world and wanted us future generations to have a 2 car garage, a picket fence and central air conditioning. It's a different story here. Only 43% of Germans own their homes, and in cities that number is even lower. Just 10% of the housing in Berlin is owner-occupied. Switzerland is the only country in the EU with a lower rate of home ownership than Germany.

So this landlord thing is kind of important.
We liked our landlady at first if only for the fact that she was willing to rent the apartment to us before we even arrived. She trusted that the international school would hire people who were somewhat responsible and wouldn't wreck the place. Little did she know we'd be the kind of tenants who would drop things on our neighbors below and run our washing machine at unacceptable hours. We only met her one time.

The new landlord is named Pedro Barrios-Schueler. With a name like that in Germany, you can bet that this guy is Spanish or at least his parents were. Maybe he's married a German and hyphenated his name to sound more German, or because she wanted him to. Mr Barrios-Schueler sent a letter just this week, asking us to send rent to him now instead of to Ursula.

As an American, I think this would be a great scam. Just send all the tenants in a building a letter saying that you are the new landlord, and collect all their rent money. A German, even a Spanish-German wouldn't think of doing that because it's against the rules. So we'll go ahead and pay up. We are just serfs anyway, and there is no air conditioning in Hannover.