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crabbonetoday at 6:10 PM0 repliesview on HN

I absolutely don't see these as benefits... Living in the Netherlands, apartments owners typically have to pay "VVE" (service fee for the ongoing upkeep of the building where your apartment is), while house owners typically pay out of their pocket for any repairs they have to do.

This was my first time living in a house as opposed to an apartment. It's been three years of bitter regret, and I'm very eager to sell the damn thing and leave the nightmare behind. In the last three years, I had to re-paint the roof, replace the garden fence and a bunch of related stuff in the garden, replace the water boiler. I had to climb on the roof of the house to rake the leaves at least twice a year (not expensive, just scary). I had to repaint areas of the house because the previous owner did a crappy job painting them.

But, most importantly, it's a piece of junk. It's a typical front brick wall with the rest of the house made of wood covered in dry wall. Its foundation is going to skew and sink because... that's the general condition of everything in the Netherlands: the ground water is too close to the surface, so the foundation is too shallow. I can't hang anything heavy on the wall because the wall can't support it. Every wall is crooked and bent and so is the ceiling, so, for example, it's not possible to put a curtain railing on the ceiling...

Everything is made of perishable materials which will last five to ten years tops, and then everything needs to be torn down and redone. Looking at how my neighbors are spending their lives on the hamster wheel of infinite repairs... I want absolutely none of this. Some people enjoy sinking their time and finances into this black hole, but I'd rather just buy hard drugs for the same price all the way until I die. It's just an arduous and unrewarding toil.