Me neither, but these days you can find anything on the internet, and here was the very same Council flat in which I spent the first three of my eight school years, the formative years when the world around me was beginning to make some sense, and it was now advertised for sale at €147,000.
|
3-room apartment for sale €147,000 77 m² 38118 Braunschweig, Cyriaksring 47
The well-maintained "Luisenhof" unit complex has been gradually renovated over the years and has developed into a popular and sought-after residential complex for young and old. This well-designed 3-room apartment is on the 2nd floor of the six-unit building on the Cyriaksring. The spacious hallway has a storage cupboard in which all sorts of things can be stored. The kitchen is quite large and offers enough space for a dining area. The small pantry with window adjacent to the kitchen is practical. The large balcony, which is accessed from the kitchen, offers beautiful views of the outdoor area below. The bathroom is located next the bedroom. It has a toilet, sink, and a bathtub with shower partition. The bedroom is large enough for two wardrobes. On the opposite side of the hallway is the living room which opens up to another room that can be used as a dining room or study. The apartment is in need of some renovations.
The wooden windows are double-glazed. The walls are wallpapered. The floors in the hallway and in the living and dining room as well as in the bedroom are carpeted. The kitchen has PVC flooring. The bathroom is tiled three-quarters up the wall, with tiles on the floor. The heating is gas-fired with the gas boiler is in the kitchen. All rooms have panel radiators.
The unit is centrally located, with shopping centres, doctors, pharmacies, bakers, hairdressers, restaurants, banks, etc. just a few minutes' walk away, as is the city of Braunschweig. If you don't want to walk, you can take the tram which is nearby, as is the bus connection. There is also a good connection to the motorways in all directions.
The monthly maintenance fee of currently €183 includes chimney sweeping, garbage collection, street cleaning, winter service, associated insurance, rainwater drainage, water/sewerage, caretaker, garden maintenance, window cleaning, and other operating costs.
|
We lived in this rented apartment at Cyriaksring 47 in the 1950s: my father, my stepmother, my stepsister Karin, my stepbrother Borkhardt, two other tenants that the Department of Social Housing always kept assigning to us, and I. A mere 77 square meters for seven people!
Those were the post-war years: housing shortages, unemployment, little money and little to eat. We were some of the lucky ones who had our own apartment, but we always had to share it with some tenants.
The three-story building belonged to the ALLIANZ insurance company and was part of the so-called "Luisenhof", which was built in 1938. It is now listed under the National Trust and the units are owner-occupied.
The view of the "Luisenhof" from the kitchen, bathroom and bedroom is still the same as it was back then, although balconies have been added and instead of frames for beating the dust out of the carpets (we had no vacuum cleaners then), there are now children's swings. And despite the housing shortages, there were no attics under the roofs then either.
The entrance opens up into a hallway and to the right is the kitchen ...
... while straight ahead and to the right is the bedroom in which we all slept: my father, my stepmother, my stepsister Karin, my stepbrother Borkhardt, and I. My oldest sister Margaret and my older brother Karl-Heinz had already escaped the dysfunctional family, but where were my two sisters Bärbel und Monika? That would've been nine people in 77 m²!
One small bedroom for five people. How did we all fit in??? (with difficulty!)
The bathroom is also the loo which, with seven people (or was it nine?), was always occupied. The wall-mounted hotwater system is no longer there. The gas had to be lit with a match to heat the water. Everything else seems just as it was then, except the holder for the toilet paper which was a luxury in those days; instead, we used the previous day's newspaper which I cut into small pieces. That's how I learnt to read.
The kitchen has since been renovated and now also has a balcony, but the built-in pantry in the left-hand corner is still there. Back then we didn't have a refrigerator nor a washing machine but there was always the huge wood-fired boiler in the basement for the weekly laundry.
The "big" living room was lived in by our tenants who kept changing on a regular basis. I still remember two zither-playing Bavarians who played at a local beerhall (the Harry Lime theme is still in my ears but, luckily, there was no "Third Man"). I also still remember a young couple who stayed with us. The pretty wife always wore a very transparent negligee which helped me enormously in getting top marks at school in biology.
The smaller sitting room, or "gute Stube", was strictly for visitors, and children were not allowed in it. All our activities took place in the kitchen which was always warm with all the cooking; there we ate, did our home work, built our own simple toys, and played LUDO in winter. Eleven square metres per person! We were poor but we didn't know it!
Thank you very much, W&W, for the memories, and thanks for having saved me the money on a QANTAS-ticket to see it again one last time.
