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Paul Gizmo's avatar

I know what you mean about the Bahnhofsvertiel in Frankfurt. I have been there for work and was recommended an Indian restaurant (which was brilliant) near there, and it was a lot of homeless helpless people there, and the area did smell a bit of, lets just keep this polite, uncleaned public toilets. I can see how it had a lot of potential, and still does, I suppose these homeless people are kinda victims, ok, some of them did choose to live on the streets in their drug addled/alcohol infused minds, but I am sure that all of them would appreciate a roof over their heads and a warm meal. Anyway, that's not what I wanted to talk about.

I had a similar challenging situation in the last few months, without going into a long diatribe about it, my parents sold their house, the one that I grew up in and moved into a retirement community. That really felt like someone had taken away the last vestige of what would always be considered home.

Then at a similar time that they moved, my old landlord told me that he was moving back in to his apartment that I have been living in for 10,5 years, which then also really broke my heart. The thought of having to find somewhere to live again was super stressful, and like you mentioned, a bunch of applications, not that many responses and then the few that I did get were massen besichtigungen. The one landlord doing one of the viewings mentioned to me that while my German was good, he would actually rather prefer a German citizen living there, and you know, at least I am not one of "those" people. I was really lucky to then find another place, obviously a lot more expensive than the old one and now no longer in the city, but in a (lovely) town in München Kreis.

It's taken a bit of time to get used to it, and now I'm a lot happier and a lot less stressed about everything. I hope that whenever you do decide to move that you get somewhere equally cool that grabs your heart(s) and you can start down the next path (or side path) of your lives :)

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Rainer Majchrzak's avatar

Hi Antoine,

you are in good company feeling this 'ambient insecurity'. It's what I keep hearing from folks I know - quite unlike it used to be in the past. A kind of generalized autumn vibe, yet not in the romantic sense. Probably many people in the West feel threatened by the changing global economical and political situation. I won't even get a closer look at Germany and its current problems.

Of course your feeling that way has a very concrete foundation. Jesus, I had no idea how decrepit the Bahnhofsviertel had become. Sounds worse even than Berlin-Neukölln.

How attached one can be to a place like an appartement I know very well because I feel the same way. What a nightmare the idea of having to move from this huge Altbauwohnung in one of the best neighborhoods (at least to me) of Berlin. Which considering my age and a possible change of landlord might happen some day.

Whatever - if I was younger I would try to leave the city anyway and move to the countryside or a much smaller city or town. If there were jobs of course one could get to without a four hour commute.

So how are your chances of finding an appropriate new appartement? Will you stay in the city or maybe move to somewhere in the Main-Taunus-Kreis? I hope you will succeed soon and I wish you good luck.

BTW, I prefered personal stories but actually I like research based essays as well. Keep them coming. Both of them.

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