Our move to Geneva this past summer felt like a spur of the moment idea. Massimo accepted a job working alongside his best friend doing maintenance on fire sprinklers. He couldn’t wait to learn something new, and fire sprinklers are the exact opposite of being a server at the Four Seasons. It’s dirty, physical work where people swear out loud and no one minds.
He arrived in the middle of July and had one week to get settled. The company had filed for his B work permit and everything was ready to go. Or so we thought.
Massimo’s mission was to get his drivers license, an apartment, and a bank account before his first day at work. Then he’d see about renewing his US and Italian passports. He went to the bank and couldn’t open an account until he had Swiss ID. He went to get his drivers license and couldn’t do that until he had his B Permit in hand. He answered a few ads for an apartment, but they require three pay stubs as proof of income. In Switzerland, paychecks arrive once a month, which meant that the soonest he’d qualify for an apartment would be October 1st. I was arriving at the beginning of September. He was staying at his best friend’s one-bedroom apartment that is roughly 400 ft2. Three people there would not work.
His first week on the job, he realized how little French he knows. He’s worked in France and Switzerland twice before in his life, always in restaurants, and always managed to figure out the language. But in the new job, he had a steep learning curve with both the language and the technical skills needed to be successful. He knows basic plumbing, but he’s really a carpenter at heart. Frustration has been a constant emotion since the day he arrived.
A friend of a friend offered to let us stay in his basement, which we are immensely grateful for. I don’t know how other immigrants do it. We’re in one big room with a large bathroom. All in, we have 300 ft2 to call home on a temporary basis. Our kitchen consists of a two-burner hot plate and an electric tea kettle. Cooking requires careful planning to prepare only enough for us to eat right then. Without a refrigerator, I often make trips to the grocery store for every meal. Weekends are the hardest. The stores close at 6pm on Saturday and don’t open again until Monday morning. We wash dishes in the bathroom. This is as close to camping as I get.
On October 1, we started answering all apartment ads that fit our small income. I’ve requested a B permit and have been assured I’ll get one. The question is always when. No one knows how long it will take. Maybe before Christmas. Without it, a job applicant with a work permit will be prioritized for a job over me. We have to figure out how to live on one income.
We arrived at a scheduled viewing and found 20 other people there to see the same place. I knew it was competitive, but this exceeded my expectations. We started putting together our dossier. We had to provide the last three pay stubs, copies of his B permit, our passports, a criminal background check which you get at the post office and it takes 3-5 days to receive, and a letter of recommendation. From whom? We’ve been in Geneva for a few months.
We were declined. No explanation given.
The next place said I could go see the place by myself. I made an appointment to pick up the key. I arrived at the office with Swiss precision - two minutes before two. I left my passport with them and took the key for a place in Meyrin which required a 5 minute walk to the bus, a transfer to the tram that crosses the city and ends by the border with France plus another 10 minutes walk to the apartment. I had exactly two hours before the key had to be back in their hands and it happened to be a day of random strikes by the public transportation and construction workers. Pressure is the name of the house hunting game here.
The place had a bathroom with a washer hook up, a small bedroom, a room that might fit a couch and a table, and a kitchen that not only had a functioning sink, but cabinets, cabinet doors, an oven, a four-burner stove, a small refrigerator, and about three total feet of work space. It was a palace at 380 ft2. I wanted it. I applied. Waited. Checked in to see if I could give them any other information.
Denied. No explanation.
This happened several more times (minus an assembled kitchen). We are now in November with a new pay stub to add to the mix. Massimo’s first pay stub was only for a partial month. Surely this has been the problem. Until I looked at the fine print. Each of the applications we’ve filled out comes with a list of required documents for your dossier. The ads all refer to your dossier as a standard set of documents, but the lists are all different on every single application. They’re also in French. They all require copies of work permits and passports, but then it’s anyone’s game. Some want your background check, others don’t. Some want references, others don’t. Some want a poursuite. A what?
Massimo asked his co-workers about the poursuite. They were sure it was a background check. In fact, it’s not. It’s proof that we don’t have any debt in Switzerland. We’ve been here for a few months! To get your poursuite, simply apply online and pay 17 CHF. Online it’s all in French with long paragraphs that you scroll through only to discover by copy/paste in Google Translate that it was one long paragraph telling you how easy it is to apply online! It took us three days to successfully apply online. Two days later, we each received long French emails telling us we could download our forms. Massimo got his but we couldn’t get mine because he applied for both of ours and the system was sure it was him when he’d log in. He called the office, they helped. He called again. They helped again. He called a third time and discovered they have an office and I should just go in. Twenty minutes later, I had my form. It was much easier than online and they spoke English there.
Application ready to send - but wait - this new apartment needs proof of renters insurance. We’re not renting yet! We’re trying to rent. But I enrolled online anyway just to get a policy number. Why not pay for something we don’t yet need?
We currently have two applications being reviewed and neither of which are ideal. They’re both tiny apartments in the city which doesn’t give either of us space to do the things we love. I want to paint and leave my stuff out. Massimo wants to do woodworking, but the garages don’t have power outlets in them. And it’s illegal to run power tools after 7pm or all day Sunday which would leave him very little time to make anything anyway.
The one thing that an apartment in Switzerland does get us, is a nuclear fall out shelter. It’s required by law that everyone has a place to go in case of a nuclear war.
In my two months here, I still maintain that the Swiss think of everything, with one exception. They haven’t figured out how to make getting an apartment easy to do. Unless of course, that’s been their goal this whole time. In which case, they are masters at deterring people from staying long because it’s just too hard. We haven’t given up yet, but if you come visit, you should plan on getting an AirBnB.