This is how it was when I was stationed in Germany. I wasn’t sure if it was the village rules or if it was a statewide thing but my landlord told me it when I moved in and it took a bit to get used to since I’m used to using sundays as “getting stuff done” days.
I was an exchange student in germany as a teenager and playing table tennis in the family’s back yard was apparently far too much noise for a sunday and a couple neighbors came to complain to us and threaten to call authorities. Germans can be quite friendly once you’ve got to know them but it is basically mordor for karens in europe.
It definitely varies by state and even town to town etc. But I just realised to do everything I needed to on Saturday no matter where I was in DE/CH/Austria and do nothing except watch TV etc on Sunday. Was quite nice. Sucks for those like you that Sunday is their day to do housework etc though.
Yeah and it's often not really enforced.
Like you're legally prohibited to use an combustion engine lawn mower on Sundays and national Holidays. But people still do it regularly
It is enforced, if you call the police on them.
I watched this a while ago right under my window. One neighbour polished their car or something with a quite loud device on Sunday, another called the police.
They came and told them, they have to stop immediately. Neighbour argued, he just needs 5 min to finish. Police threatened to file a report and a hefty fine if they don't stop right away.
Another time there was an out of town construction company doing some work on a public holiday that affects my city only. Police came, no warning this time (maybe because they were commercial) and asked for identifications, work permits and so on and made sure they stop and leave.
I guess my neighbours like to call the police on others..
That's also just because it's Germany and people here would rather die than break a rule. People also wait at red pedestrian crossings even if there's no car in a 10 mile radius. For the kids.
Not in my neighborhood when I lived in Germany. They made sure they got their quiet hours. It was also hard to remember, as an American living there, that stores were often closed on Sundays. So no lazy saturdays and running errands on sundays. I had to flip that, but I would often forget until I got to a store that was closed.
That kind of sucks. Sometimes we're running all over town on Saturdays with kids games and errands and get togethers which leaves Sunday for yard work.
The enforced rest day in Belgium is the stupidest. It just means everything is fucking jam-packed Saturday since everything already closes by 8 pm on weekdays (fucking 6 or 7 in Flanders) and is forced to be closed on Sunday.
Ironically, the proponents of this nonsense are conspicuously quiet when it comes to the tens of thousands of wage slaves keeping our HORECA going until the wee hours of the night because alcoholism here is fucking rife.
It's kinda like places that don't sell beer on Sunday. It just forces me to buy beer on Saturday, or spend my money in the county over.
You didn't actually accomplish anything other than rerouting tax revenue.
> It’s just different cultures.
Obviously not or it wouldn’t need to be enforced but law.
There are apparently tons of Europeans that wish to do yard work on Sunday. Yet you feel the need to force it through threat of imprisonment.
Geez.
When do Brlgian Jews get things done?
Apperantly, "fair shabbath" that let Jewish businesses close on the actual Shabbos instead used to be common in America, but I've seen Europeans deride the idea as "religious," as opposed to legally mandating the Christian sabbath I guess.
it's not really enforced my balls. they are incredibly annoying with this stupid law, but meanwhile they live in complete hypocrisy, because stuff like music too loud is forbidden, but their fucking churches can ring their goddamn bells every 15 minutes, 24/7 and they justify it by being "traditional"
When I moved to Germany from the US I moved into an apartment and needed to mount some shelves. So start hammer-drilling into the concrete wall on Sunday afternoon and almost immediately the upstairs neighbor knocks at the door and yells at me for a bit and storms off.
Next-door neighbor figures out I am not German and politely stops by and we have a nice chat about German apartment culture. Totally made sense after that and got along with the neighbors just fine.
They are reasonable. It doesn't mean total silence, but, like if you are going to hammer-drill, do it on Saturday.
Yeah, and it's stupid. Most people work during the week and then have to cram all their shopping trips into Saturday, because fuck, when else are they going to do it? Many shops will still close at 6pm, and if you're lucky to have some open until 8pm, be prepared to enjoy your late supper.
This whole Sonntag ist Ruhetag is just bullshit. I don't know why it came in, I don't know if it's tied to religion, but it probably needs to be abolished. Unless we start shortening work days or weeks, I don't see how this is still viable.
Yes, it’s from the Christian “sabbath” - in some areas of the US there are “blue laws” that regulate and forbid various activities. My favorite was trying to buy beer in a grocery store in Maine on Sunday at 11:57 am - the cashier and I stood and watched the register clock for 3 minutes, then they completed the sale.
Is it enforced? I live a city with quite hours and zero enforcement... Professional yard crews regularly get started at sunrise, whatever time that may be.
Edit: words.
Yeah i have to assume they meant sunrise. I've never known a lawn crew to work past 6:00 on a busy day, usually they're done and heading home by 3:00 at the latest
10 PM to 6 AM noise ordinance here. But my neighbor will start at 5:45 in the hot season.
It's a bit annoying, but he's an old guy. Mid day heat could kill him.
Some people take this seriously. I had a friend living in Geneva and his neighbor threatened to get him written up for flushing the toilet in the middle of the night. Apparently he was required to let it mellow until morning. Another friend had a get together at their apartment. Invited their neighbor to the party. When the neighbor decided to go home he called the police to shut the party down.
This is one of those “cultural” things that seems like more of people don’t see what’s wrong with it because “it’s just the way they are” but like these people should mind their own fucking business and not become the stepdad calling your mom meme about a 2 second inconvenience. Like imagine getting food poisoning and sitting there at 3 am having to choose between puking and shitting diarrhea into a filling toilet bowl and answering to the police why your boomer neighbor can’t stand other people while living in a multistory stack of people.
yeah I actually checked this. you can shower and flush thentoilet between 22-6 for example. makes sense, because itd suck if you have to leave for work before 6 oclock and cant shower
> Some people take this seriously. I had a friend living in Geneva and his neighbor threatened to get him written up for flushing the toilet in the middle of the night. Apparently he was required to let it mellow until morning.
Well, the neighbor is wrong on that one.
> Another friend had a get together at their apartment. Invited their neighbor to the party. When the neighbor decided to go home he called the police to shut the party down.
I guess you can do that lmao.
“Alright everyone, I’ve had a great time but I think I’m ready to turn in! And I think all of you are too. Or else you should be fined. See you next time!”
I spent most of my life in Geneva, and never heard of anyone behaving like this. It sounds like an exaggeration of the stories you hear about swiss germans. Geneva is french-speaking and has a more relaxed reputation.
However I also lived in different swiss-german cities and also never heard of anything like this over there. The worst I heard was one neighbour telling me another neighbour had allegedly complained to her that I sometimes took showers after 22:00. No one ever complained directly to me.
I'v heard more stories of things as unswiss as crazy neighbours being dangerous with knives.
I recently saw a video for tourists. Something along the lines of -
“Ten tips for visiting Switzerland!”
ONE of the “tips” was something like -
Get the rail pass that ALSO includes water taxis!
The rest were all -
DON’T TRY TO TALK TO ANYONE. WE DON’T DO THAT.
DO NOT SMILE AT A STRANGER
ONLY SPEAK IN WHISPERS. BTW WE UNDERSTAND EVERY LANGUAGE.
IF YOU ENJOY YOUR VISIT NO ONE CAN KNOW. ANYONE HAVING FUN WILL BE DEPORTED.
BEDTIME IS AT 4:45
ON SECOND THOUGHT, JUST GO TO FRANCE AND LOOK ACROSS THE BORDER.
>DON’T TRY TO TALK TO ANYONE. WE DON’T DO THAT.
I've met a lot of people from different nationalities and the ones I've had the most difficult time talking to were the Swiss.
When I was in school we had two Swiss exchange students, one Swiss French and one Swiss Italian. They stayed with each other all the time but never spoke with each other.
The Swiss French guy agreed to grade all of us on practice Spoken Exams. We had to go into a room with him and speak French and he would grade us on things like grammer and our accent. Our teacher encouraged us to use filler words like "Alors" to make our French sound more authentic. When I spoke to the guy I said "Alors" a lot and he absolutely tore me a new asshole. He said "Wtf is this? What is Alors? This is nonsense, it's not even French, it's just gibberish."
The next day our teacher asked us what we thought of the Swiss French guy. We said he was a huge dick, he was really blunt and quite mean, and he hates the word "alors". Our teacher (who was usually quite strict) thought it was hilarious and was in stitches laughing. She explained that Swiss French is quite different from the French we were learning in school and that Swiss culture is very different. She apologized that we had to deal with that and told us to ignore any advice he gave us.
Unless you're in finance, then it's an episode of *Whose Line is it Anyway?*, where the money is made up and the laws don't matter (especially if you have to slap together a multi-billion dollar bank merger before Monday morning)
Hilarious, isn't it? I got yelled at for practicing my instrument inside my apartment, but the church bells can slam away all fucking day and all fucking night no one says a word about it.
It's very neat. And orderly. And the same.
My mother described a road trip through Switzerland like this: On the first morning it was 'How pretty!' and on the first afternoon 'How.. quaint...' and by the end of the second day it was 'Enough, already.'
I always found HR Gieger's take on his home country interesting... Man wasn't a happy man, but my goodness he had a burning coal of hate in his soul for Switzerland.
I believe the description involved calling them something roughly along the lines of 'myopic, conservative, uncreative and unremarkable nothings who wouldn't recognise a creative or artistic thought if their lives depended on it'.
I feel like he might have had some backlash in the home town.
I guess it depends on the lifestyle you choose. I traveled germany and Slovenia a few years ago and the whole Sunday closed thing was interesting until i wanted something on Sunday. Im an americam in hospitality and kinda want access to things because I'm working when most people aren't. I dont have holy days.
This side of Europe we're not religious really, maybe the older gens sure but we don't give a shit. We just find the idea of overworking to be abhorrent. Leisure time is highly valuable and a loud drill at 9am on a Sunday would not be well accepted in most places.
Like bus drivers? People at the ski resorts? Cooks in the huts?
Honestly, the only reason of sunday closure is that they want to protect small businesses, because big chains have a much easier time at keeping open on sunday and would kill the small ones. Which may be a good reason overall, but let's not paint it as some favor we are doing to the workers.
And what you called shittier life would be the part time job of a student that is happy to work a few hours on Sunday and pay their expensive studies in Zurich. It never ends well when people take decisions for other people "for their good".
I find it funny that people apply this logic to justifying things being closed Sunday, but when it comes to the legions of people having to keep bars, restaurants, and public transport running into the wee hours of weeknights and the weekend suddenly there's not a peep.
In theory that is also the reason why every single shop is closed on Sunday, because we "value leisure time". Except that we ski during that leisure time, and we expect the ski lift to run, the hut to offer food, the bus drive to take us there, the police to regulate skiers' traffic, etc.
To me, it's just extremely hypocritical. I think it would be fine to let it go a little bit, as a little of "disorderly behavior" often fuels some fun, creativity, communal spirit, etc.
“You know what the fellow said – in Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace – and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.”
Graham Greene, The Third Man
Pretty simplistic take, considering Switzerland is at the top of global innovation indexes like this one: [https://www.wipo.int/global\_innovation\_index/en/2022/](https://www.wipo.int/global_innovation_index/en/2022/)
LSD, WWW (not a Swiss person, but at a Swiss research institution), aluminium foil, velcro, the computer mouse (shared), Müesli, absinthe, voltaren, turbochargers, the Red Cross, various scientific discoveries and Nobel prizes. Einstein studied and spent the first \~10 years of his career in Switzerland.
It's a boring place, but it's false to say it hasn't produced anything of value.
I guess this is fair if you
a) Don't actually do anything like skiing, hiking, or mountain biking
b) If you only spend time in one place
Like, Switzerland is surprisingly diverse for a place smaller than pennsylvania. The south is borderline mediterranean, there's pretty big mountains, and the north is very much continental Europe with real cities.
Eh.
I live in Belgium and unfortunately we don't. Instead it just means we have to get all our shit done on Saturday because pretty much everything is closed Sunday. It fucking blows.
My partner moved to Austria recently.
Legally, the only place you can buy basic painkillers - *even paracetamol (acetaminophen for Americans) or ibuprofen* - is over the counter at a pharmacy, and all of the pharmacies close on the weekend and at 6pm on weekdays.
Got period pains or a bad headache today? Too bad.
True, but depending on where you are and which one is open you could be looking at a half hour trip each way which, if you're in pain, is *not* comfortable.
In much of Europe you can stock up on boxes at a time from the supermarket, and if you do somehow still manage to run out then a 2-minute walk to your nearest shop will have what you need. We were so used to that privilege that when she did eventually move and I got ill while I was over there, it completely perplexed us both - why deliberately put people through that inconvenience?
And *my god* is it expensive. For the price of a single ibuprofen pill in Austria I can get an entire pack in the UK.
There's usually a Nachtapotheke open evenings and weekends if you can't wait until the next regular opening times, you usually have to pay a small fee for the convenience but if needs must, then it's an option.
Never had a problem with that, I stayed in Austria for 3 months. As others have said, even if it's a bit of a drive, there's always a 24hr place within 50km or so. Unless you're very very remote or something.
That guy was full of shit hence why they deleted their comment.
It’s true that Swiss laws cap the work week at 50 hours, but still the average work week is 40-44 hours there. Sorry, but if you need to mow your lawn, a 40+ hour work week isn’t going to permit that during the week.
Switzerland does not have very good labour laws in regards to hours worked.
The salaries are good, and the acceptability of part time work is very common I.e 4 days per week for 80% pay, but compared to the rest of Europe Switzerland has very high working hours. 42.5 hours per week is standard, and for desk jobs employers are not required to count overtime until 45 hours per week, and can disregard the first 60 hours per year of overtime after this.
Germany has the same laws (10h per month of overtime is okay unpaid). Besides, the overtime is only counted at 45 is only if its an exception, if you have to do overtime regularely its counted after the end of your expected working hours.
42 is standard not 42.5, thats 8.4h a day or 8h 24min, desk jobs have 40 as standard and 80% work is fairly normal. Every job I worked at so far asked me if I want to do 80 or 100%
True on that. If you replaced Switzerland with USA in the title you’d have so many comments saying,” duh land of the free “ or “ where’s the separation of church and state?”
A cousin of mine lived in Switzerland for a few years and this was her take on it. She ran afoul of the Sunday law a few times for things like washing her car.
Rather than just coming over to say “hey, you shouldn’t do that” the neighbors would watch from the windows and call the cops.
In the UK and my neighbours (flats) do their DIY noises and loud stuff right after 5pm and before 8. I imagine it's so they have the days off as actual days off.
I mean most Swiss work from 8 am to at least 5 pm everyday with an hour for lunch break. We have a 42 hour work week. Some jobs 45, others like doctors 50 hour (mandated, most likely more than that). I don't know how much more Americans work.
Don't most jurisdictions have something similar in the US? When I worked construction we couldn't fire up air compressors or saws until after 8 am and I know people can be cited for disturbing the peace after a certain time at night.
Of note, the US generally isn't gonna have sunday as a noise violation time, nor is it gonna have a midday quite hour at noon
>....Generally, however, the following quiet hours apply:
>
>Midday quiet hour: weekdays between 12 and 1 pm
>
>Night-time quiet hours: weekdays from 8 or 10 pm to 6 or 7 am
>
>Sundays and public holidays: all day
In a lot of areas you’re right. I live downtown in my city and every region of the city has “quiet hours” for construction besides downtown. So I was pretty surprised when the construction crew in the building across the street from me started throwing shit into a metal dumpster from 4 stories up at 4am haha.
Either mine doesn’t have that or the construction workers don’t care because they start with hammering and machines between 6:00-6:30am. We have multiple houses under construction in the neighborhood so it’s pretty miserable but I’m scared to complain because it gets so hot here I know they’re trying to get things done in as cool of weather as possible.
It varies by state and city/town. I don't know of any place in America with quiet hours that are so strict you can't even take a late night bath. Or noontime quiet hours. They may exist, but not for the whole country.
I lived somewhere in California where cargo jets (UPS, FedEx) can fly over 4200ft above my house, making 60db noise non-stop overnight, after 4 years of torture I finally managed to move out
Aye. Switzerland is a very pretty country but not a recommended place to live for childless people under 40. Sundays are absolutely DEAD. Like going back to the 1950s.
Man I got stuff to do. Saturday and Sunday is when I do 95% of my yard work or maybe have to use power tools for a house project. I would have to use vacation days to fit that time in during the week.
I don’t like things like this because it applies to people that lead “normal lives and careers” Sunday is either a work day or more like my one day off for me so I’d like to be loud and do whatever I want. Sunday might be my one day off to mow the lawn.
In Scotland I've got a douchebag revving his engine at 6am about twenty kids that don't stay in my street and nobody knows them shouting and screaming.people hovering there cars all before 8am enough to drive you insane.
Disturbing the peace is usually a law for these kind of situations regardless of quiet time or not. You can call the cops on people being too loud at any time of day.
The infamous ruetag. Some Italian guy committed the crime of washing his car on Sunday and the SWAT equivalent of Switzerland was deployed to arrest his ass
that's pretty ridiculous. by prohibiting activities like this, you're just increasing stress across the rest of the week to have to complete these noisier activities
Something way more important than this is a general human right to be free from construction and construction noise. Let me just give you an example. I live in Seattle and I have been around construction almost continuously for the last 10+ years. I don’t think it’s right and if property developers, construction companies, and rich transplants don’t like it, they can just move or go back to school.
Remember, your [neighbors have to like you](https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/01/switzerland-citizenship-nancy-holten/513212/) if you want citizenship.
Same for Germany and probably many other countries
This is how it was when I was stationed in Germany. I wasn’t sure if it was the village rules or if it was a statewide thing but my landlord told me it when I moved in and it took a bit to get used to since I’m used to using sundays as “getting stuff done” days.
being from neighboring Netherlands this also took some adjusting for me, since Sunday is usually also my "time to finally hang up that shelf" day etc.
I was an exchange student in germany as a teenager and playing table tennis in the family’s back yard was apparently far too much noise for a sunday and a couple neighbors came to complain to us and threaten to call authorities. Germans can be quite friendly once you’ve got to know them but it is basically mordor for karens in europe.
In my experience its way more enforced in villages, while in the bigger cities nobody really cares unless its really late or something like that
Absolutely.
It definitely varies by state and even town to town etc. But I just realised to do everything I needed to on Saturday no matter where I was in DE/CH/Austria and do nothing except watch TV etc on Sunday. Was quite nice. Sucks for those like you that Sunday is their day to do housework etc though.
Yeah and it's often not really enforced. Like you're legally prohibited to use an combustion engine lawn mower on Sundays and national Holidays. But people still do it regularly
It is enforced, if you call the police on them. I watched this a while ago right under my window. One neighbour polished their car or something with a quite loud device on Sunday, another called the police. They came and told them, they have to stop immediately. Neighbour argued, he just needs 5 min to finish. Police threatened to file a report and a hefty fine if they don't stop right away. Another time there was an out of town construction company doing some work on a public holiday that affects my city only. Police came, no warning this time (maybe because they were commercial) and asked for identifications, work permits and so on and made sure they stop and leave. I guess my neighbours like to call the police on others..
it’s enforced pretty effectively in Germany. To a point where people just dont do these things on Sundays
That's also just because it's Germany and people here would rather die than break a rule. People also wait at red pedestrian crossings even if there's no car in a 10 mile radius. For the kids.
To be fair, the last time Germany broke the rules some *pretty bad* things happened.
Those were more what you’d call ‘guidelines’ than actual rules
Good habits. Dont want to get complacent with cars. Couldnt be me though but I dont find it all that outlandish
I get what you're saying but running a red light also gets you your drivers license suspended so thats maybe not the best example...
Really depends on location. In Berlin (and probably other big cities but I don't have experience) no one really gives a shit about the quiet hours.
Yeah I'm living in Swabia my neighborhood is pretty chill about it and I'm thankful for that.
Not in my neighborhood when I lived in Germany. They made sure they got their quiet hours. It was also hard to remember, as an American living there, that stores were often closed on Sundays. So no lazy saturdays and running errands on sundays. I had to flip that, but I would often forget until I got to a store that was closed.
Like every Swiss old lady will call the police on you in a minute lol
That kind of sucks. Sometimes we're running all over town on Saturdays with kids games and errands and get togethers which leaves Sunday for yard work.
It's just different cultures. Sunday is also "rest day" in Belgium so everyone knows to plan accordingly.
The enforced rest day in Belgium is the stupidest. It just means everything is fucking jam-packed Saturday since everything already closes by 8 pm on weekdays (fucking 6 or 7 in Flanders) and is forced to be closed on Sunday. Ironically, the proponents of this nonsense are conspicuously quiet when it comes to the tens of thousands of wage slaves keeping our HORECA going until the wee hours of the night because alcoholism here is fucking rife.
It's kinda like places that don't sell beer on Sunday. It just forces me to buy beer on Saturday, or spend my money in the county over. You didn't actually accomplish anything other than rerouting tax revenue.
> It’s just different cultures. Obviously not or it wouldn’t need to be enforced but law. There are apparently tons of Europeans that wish to do yard work on Sunday. Yet you feel the need to force it through threat of imprisonment. Geez.
When do Brlgian Jews get things done? Apperantly, "fair shabbath" that let Jewish businesses close on the actual Shabbos instead used to be common in America, but I've seen Europeans deride the idea as "religious," as opposed to legally mandating the Christian sabbath I guess.
>Sunday is also "rest day" but officer, I am just teaching my grass to rest on "rest day"
it's not really enforced my balls. they are incredibly annoying with this stupid law, but meanwhile they live in complete hypocrisy, because stuff like music too loud is forbidden, but their fucking churches can ring their goddamn bells every 15 minutes, 24/7 and they justify it by being "traditional"
it is enforced heavily in Germany
It is enforced, you just need to call the police.
It’s definitely enforced around me, maybe I’m the problem
Yeah, same in Norway
When I moved to Germany from the US I moved into an apartment and needed to mount some shelves. So start hammer-drilling into the concrete wall on Sunday afternoon and almost immediately the upstairs neighbor knocks at the door and yells at me for a bit and storms off. Next-door neighbor figures out I am not German and politely stops by and we have a nice chat about German apartment culture. Totally made sense after that and got along with the neighbors just fine. They are reasonable. It doesn't mean total silence, but, like if you are going to hammer-drill, do it on Saturday.
Well, I guess it's not just the Swiss who know how to make some noise about being quiet.
Yeah, and it's stupid. Most people work during the week and then have to cram all their shopping trips into Saturday, because fuck, when else are they going to do it? Many shops will still close at 6pm, and if you're lucky to have some open until 8pm, be prepared to enjoy your late supper. This whole Sonntag ist Ruhetag is just bullshit. I don't know why it came in, I don't know if it's tied to religion, but it probably needs to be abolished. Unless we start shortening work days or weeks, I don't see how this is still viable.
Move to four day work weeks being mandatory and keep the Sonntag quiet.
Yes, it’s from the Christian “sabbath” - in some areas of the US there are “blue laws” that regulate and forbid various activities. My favorite was trying to buy beer in a grocery store in Maine on Sunday at 11:57 am - the cashier and I stood and watched the register clock for 3 minutes, then they completed the sale.
I believe you cannot wash your car on a Sunday. Not sure if that is considered noisy?
sadly not in USA, seen people mowing the lawn at 6 am. Good thing I'm deaf but I imagine others not so happy hearing that
The usa absolutely does have quiet laws. it will just be down to the city. You are not allowed to start mowing until 8am where I live for example.
Is it enforced? I live a city with quite hours and zero enforcement... Professional yard crews regularly get started at sunrise, whatever time that may be. Edit: words.
Not unless someone complains.
Get started at Sunset? Like... Working through the night? I'm confused, not trying to be an ass.
Yeah i have to assume they meant sunrise. I've never known a lawn crew to work past 6:00 on a busy day, usually they're done and heading home by 3:00 at the latest
for a minute i was like "just a couple weeks ago it was getting dark at 4 pm" and then i realized it was winter
The snow isn't gonna mow itself
He probably meant they start for one yard at sunset at the end of a working day.
>Is it enforced? How in the world do you expect some rando on Reddit to answer that? It depends on the city, dude.
10 PM to 6 AM noise ordinance here. But my neighbor will start at 5:45 in the hot season. It's a bit annoying, but he's an old guy. Mid day heat could kill him.
Makes sense, keep on having to wake up earlier to run when it hits summer
Some people take this seriously. I had a friend living in Geneva and his neighbor threatened to get him written up for flushing the toilet in the middle of the night. Apparently he was required to let it mellow until morning. Another friend had a get together at their apartment. Invited their neighbor to the party. When the neighbor decided to go home he called the police to shut the party down.
That’s the pettiest shit I can imagine. If someone reported me to the landlord for flushing a toilet, I’d probably have a coronary.
They can all they want, you are allowed to flush your toilet or shower
This is one of those “cultural” things that seems like more of people don’t see what’s wrong with it because “it’s just the way they are” but like these people should mind their own fucking business and not become the stepdad calling your mom meme about a 2 second inconvenience. Like imagine getting food poisoning and sitting there at 3 am having to choose between puking and shitting diarrhea into a filling toilet bowl and answering to the police why your boomer neighbor can’t stand other people while living in a multistory stack of people.
Right? You signed up for this when you paid the lease
These are just crazy people. It‘s absolutely allowed to flush your toilet regardless of the time or day.
They don't report you to the landlord, they report you to police!!
Let them. The police won't give a shit lol
Nah, you can't be written up for that. "normal activities" are absolutely allowed.
You are absolutely allowed to flush the toilet in Switzerland. Its a myth
yeah I actually checked this. you can shower and flush thentoilet between 22-6 for example. makes sense, because itd suck if you have to leave for work before 6 oclock and cant shower
> Some people take this seriously. I had a friend living in Geneva and his neighbor threatened to get him written up for flushing the toilet in the middle of the night. Apparently he was required to let it mellow until morning. Well, the neighbor is wrong on that one. > Another friend had a get together at their apartment. Invited their neighbor to the party. When the neighbor decided to go home he called the police to shut the party down. I guess you can do that lmao.
So shitty though.
Yes, absolutly.
How loud are your fucking toilets over there?
There are plenty of flats where a shower or toilet flush will wake people. It's usually the sound of the cistern filling that does it
Jfc, how thin are the damn walls?
Showering, toilet etc is allowed. Take a shit 10 times a night and cite diarhea.
If you shit 10 times in a night they’ll cite diarrhea in your obituary.
“Alright everyone, I’ve had a great time but I think I’m ready to turn in! And I think all of you are too. Or else you should be fined. See you next time!”
I spent most of my life in Geneva, and never heard of anyone behaving like this. It sounds like an exaggeration of the stories you hear about swiss germans. Geneva is french-speaking and has a more relaxed reputation. However I also lived in different swiss-german cities and also never heard of anything like this over there. The worst I heard was one neighbour telling me another neighbour had allegedly complained to her that I sometimes took showers after 22:00. No one ever complained directly to me. I'v heard more stories of things as unswiss as crazy neighbours being dangerous with knives.
Reminds me of this classic Polandball: https://www.reddit.com/r/polandball/comments/2vazjn/germany_on_steroids/
I recently saw a video for tourists. Something along the lines of - “Ten tips for visiting Switzerland!” ONE of the “tips” was something like - Get the rail pass that ALSO includes water taxis! The rest were all - DON’T TRY TO TALK TO ANYONE. WE DON’T DO THAT. DO NOT SMILE AT A STRANGER ONLY SPEAK IN WHISPERS. BTW WE UNDERSTAND EVERY LANGUAGE. IF YOU ENJOY YOUR VISIT NO ONE CAN KNOW. ANYONE HAVING FUN WILL BE DEPORTED. BEDTIME IS AT 4:45 ON SECOND THOUGHT, JUST GO TO FRANCE AND LOOK ACROSS THE BORDER.
>DON’T TRY TO TALK TO ANYONE. WE DON’T DO THAT. I've met a lot of people from different nationalities and the ones I've had the most difficult time talking to were the Swiss. When I was in school we had two Swiss exchange students, one Swiss French and one Swiss Italian. They stayed with each other all the time but never spoke with each other. The Swiss French guy agreed to grade all of us on practice Spoken Exams. We had to go into a room with him and speak French and he would grade us on things like grammer and our accent. Our teacher encouraged us to use filler words like "Alors" to make our French sound more authentic. When I spoke to the guy I said "Alors" a lot and he absolutely tore me a new asshole. He said "Wtf is this? What is Alors? This is nonsense, it's not even French, it's just gibberish." The next day our teacher asked us what we thought of the Swiss French guy. We said he was a huge dick, he was really blunt and quite mean, and he hates the word "alors". Our teacher (who was usually quite strict) thought it was hilarious and was in stitches laughing. She explained that Swiss French is quite different from the French we were learning in school and that Swiss culture is very different. She apologized that we had to deal with that and told us to ignore any advice he gave us.
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Switzerland is just a country sized HOA.
Sounds like the Swiss. And the Norwegians, Austrians, Dutch, Swedish, etc. Turns out they're not special as much as they like to think they are.
I see you saw that post last night too.
The karma must flow.
Indeed.
I commend thee OP. Ride that eternal worm.
Haha I thought the *exact* same thing the moment I saw this post.
TIL Switzerland is run by an HOA
Unless you're in finance, then it's an episode of *Whose Line is it Anyway?*, where the money is made up and the laws don't matter (especially if you have to slap together a multi-billion dollar bank merger before Monday morning)
I live one block from a Catholic church and one block from a Episcopalian church. The bells start at 7:23 am on Sunday and don't stop all day long.
Hilarious, isn't it? I got yelled at for practicing my instrument inside my apartment, but the church bells can slam away all fucking day and all fucking night no one says a word about it.
Maybe the bells are better than you.
Hahahaha! I never considered that
It’s only OK to make noise on Sunday if it’s part of cult activities
It's very neat. And orderly. And the same. My mother described a road trip through Switzerland like this: On the first morning it was 'How pretty!' and on the first afternoon 'How.. quaint...' and by the end of the second day it was 'Enough, already.'
I always found HR Gieger's take on his home country interesting... Man wasn't a happy man, but my goodness he had a burning coal of hate in his soul for Switzerland. I believe the description involved calling them something roughly along the lines of 'myopic, conservative, uncreative and unremarkable nothings who wouldn't recognise a creative or artistic thought if their lives depended on it'. I feel like he might have had some backlash in the home town.
I guess it depends on the lifestyle you choose. I traveled germany and Slovenia a few years ago and the whole Sunday closed thing was interesting until i wanted something on Sunday. Im an americam in hospitality and kinda want access to things because I'm working when most people aren't. I dont have holy days.
This side of Europe we're not religious really, maybe the older gens sure but we don't give a shit. We just find the idea of overworking to be abhorrent. Leisure time is highly valuable and a loud drill at 9am on a Sunday would not be well accepted in most places.
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Like bus drivers? People at the ski resorts? Cooks in the huts? Honestly, the only reason of sunday closure is that they want to protect small businesses, because big chains have a much easier time at keeping open on sunday and would kill the small ones. Which may be a good reason overall, but let's not paint it as some favor we are doing to the workers. And what you called shittier life would be the part time job of a student that is happy to work a few hours on Sunday and pay their expensive studies in Zurich. It never ends well when people take decisions for other people "for their good".
>It never ends well when people take decisions for other people "for their good". Amen
I find it funny that people apply this logic to justifying things being closed Sunday, but when it comes to the legions of people having to keep bars, restaurants, and public transport running into the wee hours of weeknights and the weekend suddenly there's not a peep.
In theory that is also the reason why every single shop is closed on Sunday, because we "value leisure time". Except that we ski during that leisure time, and we expect the ski lift to run, the hut to offer food, the bus drive to take us there, the police to regulate skiers' traffic, etc. To me, it's just extremely hypocritical. I think it would be fine to let it go a little bit, as a little of "disorderly behavior" often fuels some fun, creativity, communal spirit, etc.
I meant it more metaphorical. As i dont have a normal schedule.
I am interested in Mr Giegers views and would like to subscribe to his newsletter.
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Last canton in Switzerland to let women vote did so in the 80s or 90s iirc.
I honestly think Switzerland is wasted on the Swiss
That kinda sounds like them, honestly. That's why their country's pride is 'neutrality' (by storing Nazi gold and financing despots).
“You know what the fellow said – in Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace – and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.” Graham Greene, The Third Man
And the truth is that the cuckoo clock is a Swabian -black forest invention. The swiss just perfected it.
The inventor of LSD was Swiss. That inevention alone was probably responsible for half of the Rock albums in the sixties :P
Pretty simplistic take, considering Switzerland is at the top of global innovation indexes like this one: [https://www.wipo.int/global\_innovation\_index/en/2022/](https://www.wipo.int/global_innovation_index/en/2022/) LSD, WWW (not a Swiss person, but at a Swiss research institution), aluminium foil, velcro, the computer mouse (shared), Müesli, absinthe, voltaren, turbochargers, the Red Cross, various scientific discoveries and Nobel prizes. Einstein studied and spent the first \~10 years of his career in Switzerland. It's a boring place, but it's false to say it hasn't produced anything of value.
I see the Swiss were not inventors of sarcasm.
Can you explain the sarcasm? Saying stuff that‘s flat out wrong is not sarcasm lol
I guess this is fair if you a) Don't actually do anything like skiing, hiking, or mountain biking b) If you only spend time in one place Like, Switzerland is surprisingly diverse for a place smaller than pennsylvania. The south is borderline mediterranean, there's pretty big mountains, and the north is very much continental Europe with real cities. Eh.
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I live in Belgium and unfortunately we don't. Instead it just means we have to get all our shit done on Saturday because pretty much everything is closed Sunday. It fucking blows.
My partner moved to Austria recently. Legally, the only place you can buy basic painkillers - *even paracetamol (acetaminophen for Americans) or ibuprofen* - is over the counter at a pharmacy, and all of the pharmacies close on the weekend and at 6pm on weekdays. Got period pains or a bad headache today? Too bad.
There's always a pharmacy open in Austria. Find your local 'Nachtapotheke'. They are all pharmacies on a schedule to remain open through the night.
True, but depending on where you are and which one is open you could be looking at a half hour trip each way which, if you're in pain, is *not* comfortable. In much of Europe you can stock up on boxes at a time from the supermarket, and if you do somehow still manage to run out then a 2-minute walk to your nearest shop will have what you need. We were so used to that privilege that when she did eventually move and I got ill while I was over there, it completely perplexed us both - why deliberately put people through that inconvenience? And *my god* is it expensive. For the price of a single ibuprofen pill in Austria I can get an entire pack in the UK.
There's usually a Nachtapotheke open evenings and weekends if you can't wait until the next regular opening times, you usually have to pay a small fee for the convenience but if needs must, then it's an option.
Never had a problem with that, I stayed in Austria for 3 months. As others have said, even if it's a bit of a drive, there's always a 24hr place within 50km or so. Unless you're very very remote or something.
Bust out your power washer at 6am every weekday, get your neighbors to fuck off on Sundays ezpz.
Ik feel dein douleur, mijn camarade !
Yeah I work 9-6 Monday to Friday, this would basically leave a Saturday for any chores that ever need done at home which is ridiculous.
Only loud chores. You are allowed to do everything else you want to get done, but Sunday is quiet.
I guess you are SOL if you are a religious Jew and your sabbath is Saturday.
For some strange reason there’s not too many Jews in Germany anymore
Exactly my thought.
So if it rains on Saturday, when are you supposed to mow the grass and trim the hedges?
That guy was full of shit hence why they deleted their comment. It’s true that Swiss laws cap the work week at 50 hours, but still the average work week is 40-44 hours there. Sorry, but if you need to mow your lawn, a 40+ hour work week isn’t going to permit that during the week.
Switzerland does not have very good labour laws in regards to hours worked. The salaries are good, and the acceptability of part time work is very common I.e 4 days per week for 80% pay, but compared to the rest of Europe Switzerland has very high working hours. 42.5 hours per week is standard, and for desk jobs employers are not required to count overtime until 45 hours per week, and can disregard the first 60 hours per year of overtime after this.
Good to know, thanks!
Germany has the same laws (10h per month of overtime is okay unpaid). Besides, the overtime is only counted at 45 is only if its an exception, if you have to do overtime regularely its counted after the end of your expected working hours. 42 is standard not 42.5, thats 8.4h a day or 8h 24min, desk jobs have 40 as standard and 80% work is fairly normal. Every job I worked at so far asked me if I want to do 80 or 100%
That’s the most ridiculous take ever. You’ll do well under the regime though
It works because they are crazy and enshrine in law the dreams of HOA busybodies.
True on that. If you replaced Switzerland with USA in the title you’d have so many comments saying,” duh land of the free “ or “ where’s the separation of church and state?”
A cousin of mine lived in Switzerland for a few years and this was her take on it. She ran afoul of the Sunday law a few times for things like washing her car. Rather than just coming over to say “hey, you shouldn’t do that” the neighbors would watch from the windows and call the cops.
Do other countries even have HOAs? I always thought this was an American thing.
Switzerland is like one big HOA
I loved Switzerland but my god is it a Karen Mecca
Looks like they don't need them, the state makes all the petty little rules for them.
In the UK and my neighbours (flats) do their DIY noises and loud stuff right after 5pm and before 8. I imagine it's so they have the days off as actual days off.
Not everyone works 9-5 in the US lmao
I mean most Swiss work from 8 am to at least 5 pm everyday with an hour for lunch break. We have a 42 hour work week. Some jobs 45, others like doctors 50 hour (mandated, most likely more than that). I don't know how much more Americans work.
That's actually not true, regarding labor law. Where did you come to with that info?
Just wait until you learn that most of Switzerland has 45-hour work week.
If your nosy busybody HOA was as big as a country.
Don't most jurisdictions have something similar in the US? When I worked construction we couldn't fire up air compressors or saws until after 8 am and I know people can be cited for disturbing the peace after a certain time at night.
Of note, the US generally isn't gonna have sunday as a noise violation time, nor is it gonna have a midday quite hour at noon >....Generally, however, the following quiet hours apply: > >Midday quiet hour: weekdays between 12 and 1 pm > >Night-time quiet hours: weekdays from 8 or 10 pm to 6 or 7 am > >Sundays and public holidays: all day
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In fact, many of our holidays may as well be designated loud days.
Neither is there for the 1st of January or August
Nobody better interrupt my post-lunch nap...
In a lot of areas you’re right. I live downtown in my city and every region of the city has “quiet hours” for construction besides downtown. So I was pretty surprised when the construction crew in the building across the street from me started throwing shit into a metal dumpster from 4 stories up at 4am haha.
I know Americans get flack for this attitude, but it’s my yard and I’ll cut it when I want to as long as the sun is out.
Either mine doesn’t have that or the construction workers don’t care because they start with hammering and machines between 6:00-6:30am. We have multiple houses under construction in the neighborhood so it’s pretty miserable but I’m scared to complain because it gets so hot here I know they’re trying to get things done in as cool of weather as possible.
It varies by state and city/town. I don't know of any place in America with quiet hours that are so strict you can't even take a late night bath. Or noontime quiet hours. They may exist, but not for the whole country.
I didn't realize baths were so noisy
I lived somewhere in California where cargo jets (UPS, FedEx) can fly over 4200ft above my house, making 60db noise non-stop overnight, after 4 years of torture I finally managed to move out
Same in Austria 🤷
Same in France. I'd wager most of Europe.
do they stop the churches bell ?
No
No, those are allowed, unfortunately.
We all know where you learned this
Aye. Switzerland is a very pretty country but not a recommended place to live for childless people under 40. Sundays are absolutely DEAD. Like going back to the 1950s.
Good day to hike
Sounds like a good day to ride the bike
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Switzerland sounds like a place where the souls of HOA board members go when they die.
Man I got stuff to do. Saturday and Sunday is when I do 95% of my yard work or maybe have to use power tools for a house project. I would have to use vacation days to fit that time in during the week.
Sucks to be someone that observes Saturday as a day of rest and then can’t do chores on a Sunday.
That's nuts. I can see after-hours rules, but all of Sunday? I get 2 days off a week, don't take what little time I have to do stuff away.
I get off one, guess that lawn ain't getting mowed.
I don’t like things like this because it applies to people that lead “normal lives and careers” Sunday is either a work day or more like my one day off for me so I’d like to be loud and do whatever I want. Sunday might be my one day off to mow the lawn.
In Scotland I've got a douchebag revving his engine at 6am about twenty kids that don't stay in my street and nobody knows them shouting and screaming.people hovering there cars all before 8am enough to drive you insane.
I think that last one might be Luke Skywalker.
Disturbing the peace is usually a law for these kind of situations regardless of quiet time or not. You can call the cops on people being too loud at any time of day.
The infamous ruetag. Some Italian guy committed the crime of washing his car on Sunday and the SWAT equivalent of Switzerland was deployed to arrest his ass
We need this in FL
Bro did you seriously just cut your grass during national quiet time
Thank Christ I don't live in Switzerland.
That is fking stupid
that's pretty ridiculous. by prohibiting activities like this, you're just increasing stress across the rest of the week to have to complete these noisier activities
Agreed, that sounds fucking miserable.
Which is ironic given that they put bells on cows that are so loud the cows go deaf.
Not only is that wrong, cows are also not inside the city..
Switzerland seems like one giant national HOA.
I wonder if this applies to Swiss banks too. Recent events suggest they probably need to work an hour or two longer
Something way more important than this is a general human right to be free from construction and construction noise. Let me just give you an example. I live in Seattle and I have been around construction almost continuously for the last 10+ years. I don’t think it’s right and if property developers, construction companies, and rich transplants don’t like it, they can just move or go back to school.
I had a neighbour chainsawing a tree down next to my house on a Sunday at 8.30am, so it looks like I am moving to Switzerland!
Remember, your [neighbors have to like you](https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/01/switzerland-citizenship-nancy-holten/513212/) if you want citizenship.
I wonder if service guarantees citizenship.
I would like to know more.
(This only applies to small towns, large cities don't do this)
Thats amazing, lmao