What if I told you that you would be moving to a country where if in the event of a fire you may become lost in a smoke-filled stairwell?  If you guessed you would be moving to Germany...well Geewhiz, you guessed correctly.  Germany is a one of the leading countries in the world in exports.  They make everything for everything.  They are probably most famous for machines, machines and tools that fix machines and cars.  Das Auto.  This is a subject for another blog.  But today I would like to focus on what could be perceived as German stinginess when it comes to safety or American wastefulness when it comes to doing everything in the name of safety and in the process burning a lot of electricity.

Germans (at least in Berlin) have a shared stairwell that can go up to 11 or 12 stories in some of the larger pre-reunificatin of Germany.  These tenements that would be too dangerous to enter because of criminality in the US are generally safe buildings here in Berlin (even though one apartment gets broken into every hour in Berlin).  When you consider 3.8 million people are living in Germany the headline on the front of the paper with the rate of break-ins seems rather over-sensationalized.  I lived in one for two years here (now I am a homeowner or rather I rent from the bank.  They are called Plattenbau and they are made of pre-poured/formed concrete walls and look sometimes rather hideous because basically they are a large concrete rectangle (that when not yet renovated can look rather austere and depressing).

So how does this tie in with German cheapskates and American energy-pigs you may be asking?  Well a pig, if he has deserved it or not has become the symbol of wastefulness.  I don't think pigs are all too terribly wasteful.  Germans do not have lights burning in hallways or in this case stairwells 24 hours-a-day in apartments.  In America I believe there is a law that stipulates for fire safety that lights burn 24 hours-a-day no matter what.  In Germany you exit your apartment and with the daylight you don't need to push the button to activate the lights unless it is dark (or you can't see that well and are old).  The light switch is on a timer and stays on for a few minutes and the resets itself and turns off.  This must save millions of Watts of energy a year.  Maybe billions.  Americans in the name of fire safety have taken the approach that lives can be saved somehow with these lights in the hallway always burning.  If there were a real fire I don't think you would be able to see the lights that are there for safety through the heavy billowing smoke.  I find the German solution here much more logical and it helps save the environment and keep the price of rent down.  You may say that you don't directly pay for that light in your hallway, but I say you do.  That cost is taken into account when the Apartment Management and Owners are deciding how much to charge for rent.  In this competition it looks like Germany wins 1-0.  More peculiarities and oddities to follow.