Category Archives: The Balcony that “would not be affected”

This category is about one of the biggest lies that has ever been told to me and the balcony of which I have not had the full use since mid-2019.

The Balcony that "would not be affected"

Oh, what a Beautiful Morning ….

17/08/2024 Helle Møller

07.30 on a Saturday morning. Settling in to spend a QUIET weekend AT HOME, in and out of the balcony, pure bliss, no need to go out in order to escape the ear-splitting noise from the neighbours from hell.

When suddenly: Same-old-same-old. Just half an hour later than during the week. Like from drilling into a rock or a wall or something, I can’t actually see it but other neighbours can and are trying to ask them how long this will last. Which they are of course ignoring. Their arrogance never stops reaching new heights.

I feel like crying.

It is a good thing guns are not readily available in this country. If I had access to one right now, there would be dead people.

Cresco Capital Group @CrescoRealEstate

The Balcony that "would not be affected"

Alt-Lübars and Köppschensee 9 August

09/08/2024 Helle Møller

Back in 2016, and as far as I remember also most of 2017, when I had just moved to Berlin, I used to go out to visit other places because I wanted to go THERE. How I long for those days when I was able to choose to stay at home and just BE, and chill, and use my balcony.

The need to get out of the house every weekday for so many years is really starting to catch up with me, and I am so tired. Now I often struggle to think of places to go because I need to get away from HERE and the neighbours from hell (the one with the ridiculous name of “Victoria zu Berlin”).

I doubt those good old days will come back. I am quite sure they will keep thinking of ways to make life miserable for the entire area, especially every summer.

Anyway, though I knew it would start to rain sooner or later, I ventured out to spend a little bit of time around Alt-Lübars, specifically an extremely peaceful placed by Köppschensee.

Bonus tip: There is no sign of any cafés in Alt-Lübars, and decent coffee is even hard to come by in the vicinity of S-Bahn station Waidmanshof, but now there is a new, modern café – “Ma Maison” just around the corner from the last bus stop before the stop at the station, when you come from Alt-Lübars on bus 222. A nice selection of fresh food and drink, but uncomfortable seating and ear-splittingly loud music. Nowadays you can’t have everything.

Photos to come.

The Balcony that "would not be affected"

Here we go again …

08/08/2024 Helle Møller

If I want to enjoy my balcony on weekdays, it has to be before 06.30 – that is the time they start shouting and laughing (standing and sitting right next to each other – are they deaf since they need to be so loud)?

Seven AM sharp – engines on and running and more noise, this morning giant cobble-stones being shifted from one pile to another. I have asked the neighbours from hell several times whether I and my neighbours will have at least ONE week this year where we can stay at home, with balcony doors open, and not have to leave our homes evey day to escape the noise. One week on my balcony, in my own home, for the first time since 2017? I am so tired and feel I am losing my mind. But they don’t even read their e-mails, let alone reply to them.

I am seriously thinking of cancelling the bridge evening at my place tonight. I have had a form of sciatica for months which my orthopedist says is most likely caused by stress, and am taking stronger and stronger painkillers which do not really take the pain away but cause severe brainfog (finally starting physiotherapy later this month). Somebody suggested another four weeks of “Reha”, but I really need to be in my own home, and also, much as I enjoyed my four weeks in Sankt-Peder Ording in November/December 2022, the food was not healthy (despite being a clinic specialising in post-cancer-recovery, and I am told that was one of the better places in that regard.

I JUST NEED TO BE ABLE TO SPEND TIME IN AND OUT OF MY BALCONY, CHILLING, AND GOING OUT TO PLACES BECAUSE I WANT TO AND NOT IN ORDER TO GET AWAY FROM HERE.

Cresco Capital Group

The Balcony that "would not be affected"

Only in Berlin …

07/08/2024 Helle Møller

does it take a spring and a summer, and by the looks of it also an autumn, and so much noise, to landscape such a small piece of land: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3k7t5ApDEQ.

Of course there would be no fun in preparing the tiles BEFORE transporting them here, because then you would miss a golden opportunity to continue, in year eight, to make life a living hell for a large area around you, and rendering our balconies unusable for at least as long, and that would be no fun, would it?

The Balcony that "would not be affected"

Day in, day out, week in, week out, year in, year out

24/07/2024 Helle Møller

This week, they are cutting tiles to make sure nothing green can grow and provide shade there. I guess trees and bushes are too environment-friendly and healthy for the air and the soil and for people’s mental health. A tiled wasteland is much better, and more importantly, it makes an earsplitting noise to construct it. Why am I not surprised? Cresco Capital Group Cresco Real Estate

It reminds me of the relatively recently landscaped space in front of Kulturforum – barely a tree in sight, and crossing it feels like being in hell during summer. How is that sort of thing even allowed nowadays? What planet have people just dropped down from?

The Balcony that "would not be affected"

Timing is everything in Cresco’s infinity project

11/07/2024 Helle Møller

I have to say that Cresco’s, and Victoria zu Berlin (I still think that is hysterically funny) sense of timing is breathtaking. From physically halving the area of my balcony for a couple of years at the height of the pandemic when it would have been really good to have the full use of that space (and they had promised me that my balcony would not be affected, also described here: https://www.hellemoller.eu/category/the-balcony-that-would-not-be-affected/), to always making more noise every summer than every winter, basically ruining all summers for us since about 2018 to now when it is worse than ever.

They are, supposedly, landscaping the garden behind the building, on a piece of land adjoining ours. Not that anything ever happens. Most of the time they just switch on the machines, but the place has been looking more or less the same for months. Why this “work” had to take place in April, May, June, July, ….. is beyond me. After all, those machines can be switched on and left to make an infernal noise any time of the year.

But at the height of summer, to make sure everybody in the area have to keep windows and balcony doors closed. Thanks again, Cresco Capital Group or Real Estate or whatever it is they call themselves, and “Victoria zu Berlin” (sorry but I have to laugh every time I see that silly yet pompous name).

The Balcony that "would not be affected"

Can anyone explain?

02/07/2024 Helle Møller

Here is another phenomenon I don’t understand – perhaps someone can explain: If occupants of an apartment building have been plagued by noise and other nuisances from a construction site for years (and in my case the size of my balcony was halved for a couple of years, at the height of the pandemic when it would have been really nice to have the full use of my balcony), then those owners who are renting out their flats while living somewhere else will get compensation, so that they can (choose to) compensate their tenants, but the owners who live in the flats themselves will not be compensated. Is it just me who can’t see the logic in that? Cresco Capital Group

The Balcony that "would not be affected"

Where is the sense of proportion in this country?

01/07/2024 Helle Møller

As detailed in this category, the building next door has been under renovation for about seven years which has meant an inferno of noise, and for example, I have not been able to use my balcony for as many summers, for one reason or the other, including this summer, which has perhaps so far been the noisiest of all because they are pretending to be doing some landscape gardening downstairs.

During all this time, our Hausverwaltung has been mostly silent and seemingly more on the side of the investors next door than on ours.

Imagine my surprise, then, when this morning I received a letter (yes – as in snailmail – how absurd and laughable is that in itself?) informing me that the fence downstairs between our plot of land and that of the monstrosity next door will be replaced this week. End of.

Now, when I receive an actual letter, as in by Deutsche Post, I assume it is about something important, and which will have consequences for me and/or require some sort of action from my side. So I opened it.

But that is literally all they write. Not a word about why they are telling us this after basically never having warned us about particularly noisy weeks months and years. Not to mention the scaffolding and debris which prevented me from using my balcony for at least two summers, one of which was at the height of the pandemic when it would have been really nice to have the use of that outdoor space. Especially since I was promised at the beginning that my balcony would not be affected. One of, as it has turned out, many lies told to me since I moved to Berlin.

Seriously? Is that all they wanted to tell us – by LETTER, as if we don’t have eyes in our heads and can see what is happening? WHY BOTHER TO SEND A LETTER about something so unimportant, trivial, and non-conseqential after having ignored all the real problems we have been having basically for the last handful of years????? Who cares that an old FENCE is being removed and replaced by a new one?

Beginning again after a surreal six months, The Balcony that "would not be affected"

Hallo neighbour

23/12/2022 Helle Møller

Long time no see. You looked a lot better clad in scaffolding. I had forgotten quite how unbelievably ugly you really are.

But I will never forget being deprived of the use of my balcony for two years – in mid pandemic where it would have been really nice to be able to use one’s own balcony. Not to mention the repeated cleaning up each time a load of various types of debris – and cigarette stubs (!) – had been thrown onto the balcony, and each time layers of some kind of dust covered EVERYTHING on it. All documented here: “The balcony that would not be affected”. And the lack of light – again – during the pandemic!! – in my living room because of the scaffolding. After I had been told that my balcony would not be affected. As far as I know the biggest lie ever told to me.

Victoria Berlin

Cresco Real Estate

Life in Berlin while Covid lingers, The Balcony that "would not be affected"