Something About Zürich...: New Apartment

We had been told the rental market in Zurich is very tight- particularly in the areas where everyone wants to live. It just so happens that our favorite part of town is just one of those areas. It's funny because I have always gotten frustrated by the show 'House Hunters International' - I can never understand how people are able to make a decision on a place with only three choices!! Well my Zurich house hunting trip was pretty much an episode of house hunters international. Our relocation agent brought me around to see a variety of apartments she had selected based on our criteria, and then we had to apply. Generally I think we were pretty lucky- we applied for four apartments and got turned down by two. They can turn you down for any reason here- there is no 'first come first serve if qualified' rule. We were competing against Swiss applicants who had other landlords here and a credit history (US credit doesn't count), and apparently our permit type makes us a bit 'undesirable'. We had heard some horror stories, so we felt quite lucky that we got acceptance from our second favorite apartment (which we took). Our landlady is very 'Swiss' (ie. they love to complain about EVERYTHING), but she is also very nice, so things could be much worse. Initially Matt had some problems with her (she actually called his employer to complain about the tidiness of the apartment- talk about embarrassing!), but now things have settled down. Luckily the landlords own a business downstairs so we dont really have to worry about being too loud most of the time, and our upstairs neighbor (though raised in Switzerland) does not have the 'Swiss' mentality and is super sweet.

Here are some pics of the apartment: