In Memoriam Langstrasse

We moved out of Langstrasse 104 at the end of November 2007. I had lived there for over seven years (starting March 2000). Once we arrived at the new flat, Claudia and I reminisced about all the weird stuff we had seen.

Langstrasse 104

Claudia

• Soon after we moved in we woke up early one morning to hear somebody trying to pick the lock of our front door. I banged on the door and told them to piss off or I’d call the police. It turns out they were the police. I had them show their badge at the spyhole and let them in. They were looking for a guy called Schneider in Langstrasse 106 and had failed to find the right building. I guess they then decided to investigate Schröder in Langstrasse 104 just in case... Stupid, and scary.
• A bit later Claudia and I came back home with a cab. As I was paying, three drunken guys came out of Lugano bar, and one of them opened the back door and tried to sit on Claudia’s lap. I went out and told them that’s enough. They surrounded me and the grey haired guy told me to watch my language or else. Claudia took advantage of the diversion and got out of the cab, opened the door to our building, and I followed. We closed the door behind us and a second later the first drunk ran after us and tried to come into the building. But we had closed the door already. Phew!
• Our neighbours looked as old as Keith Richards and loved to play the Rolling Stones early in the morning. We often heard them fight about money.
• The street battles every May 1 bettwen the Black Block and the police...
• At some time I heard that an Iraqi had been refused admittance to the Lambada club, whereupon he went home and got his assault rifle and fired at the club. What he didn’t know was that the club was housed in a former bank and all the glass is bullet proof. Nobody got hurt.
• At one time I heard a commotion and looked down from my balcony. Two guys stumbled out of Lugano bar. One was angry and wielding a knife, the other was bleeding and pleading for mercy. A few seconds later the guy with the knife ran away with a friend.
• Some other day Claudia had heard about a knifing and seen the bus ticket machine full of blood. Sometimes the cleaners are not fast enough...
• Another day Claudia and I followed the tracks of a bleeding victim through the back alleys but abandoned our search when it was clear that we were not going to catch up any time soon. We did get to see some interesting back entrances to sex clubs and brothels.
• And the guy who shot two drug users because they were getting on his nerves. When I looked out the kitchen window, a police man had pointed a tear gas grenade launcher at me... → 2004-10-25 Switzerland
• The guy who jumped out of the window to his death... → 2005-07-04
• “Underwear man” → 2006-05-26
• Later that same flat got taken over by a young man who soon slipped into drugs. Slowly the flat turned into a mess as more and more addicts started moving in and out. Then everything was quiet. And a few laters painters and other craftsmen started working on the flat. On the day we moved out a painter told us that the net damage had been about CHF 30’000 and that he used ten pairs of gloves while working on replacing and painting the wall paper. Everything was torn and broken and full of blood splatters. The floor and the kitchen furniture had to be replaced.
• Oh and there was this small innocent looking woman living upstairs that we found one day trying to open our flat door, shouting “dihei! dihei!” (home! home!) until she fell down a flight of stairs in a drunken stupor and stayed on the floor continuing to moan and shout incoherently. She moved out soon enough. It turns out that she had cockroaches in her flat. The landlord organized a service contract with Rentokill.
• The guy below us liked black women and had lots of prostitutes in his flat. Sometimes they got trapped between the building door and the iron gate leading out to the street. He would not care, and thus the angry women rang all the bells until somebody opened the iron gate for them. Our neighbour told me later when he had died that he liked to organize sex parties and had asked her to join as well. Remember she looks like Keith Richard’s soul mate. And he was a big fat drunkard most of the time who liked to use lots of Viagra, according to our neighbor.
• Coming home late at night was no fun for Claudia. Men following her, talking to her, telling her how beautiful she was, then insulting her as a stupid bitch and a racist if she didn’t want to talk to them. Even the taxi drivers made sleazy comments about people having to work late at night.

2004-10-25 Switzerland

2005-07-04

2006-05-26

I think we had enough reason to move out! 😄 → 2007-11-08 Moving

2007-11-08 Moving

• Update*, years later: Apparently our neighbor threw himself out of the window to his death. Heard it from my hair dresser…

​#Langstrasse ​#Life

Comments

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This is all for real? I actually rechecked to see if it was April 1 while reading it. I’m glad that you guys moved. May your new apartment be safer and nicer. 😄

– NoufalIbrahim 2007-12-03 17:39 UTC

NoufalIbrahim

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Now that I’m looking back on the list, it does seem quite weird. 😄

– Alex Schroeder 2007-12-04 00:39 UTC

Alex Schroeder