Part of it might just be that is increases the value of the apartment
For smokers
It’s for emergency exit.
/s
They are not human friendly.
You add tiny, mini, useless balconies so that you can check off another tick box on a zillow or trulia search, justify an increased rental cost.
Then you make the balconies as small as possible, as featureless as possible, and throw a whole bunch of rules into your rental agreement that prevent you from actually using them for basically any reason: Can’t smoke on the balcony, can’t dry clothes on it, can’t cook on it, can’t display any thing like a flag or banner on the balcony because of some made up aesthetic code, etc.
I’ve lived in a lot of different apartments of differing quality and location, and while I’m not saying that modern apartment residential balconies are entirely a scam, they very often are.
Can’t smoke on the balcony,
Because that smoke goes into other people’s apartments. People who may not also be smokers or may have asthma or other medical conditions in which 2nd hand smoke is bad. not actually a building choice… most states now bar smoking inside or near a multi-unit residential building.
can’t dry clothes on it,
19 states have some form of “right to dry” legislation, most of which would protect drying on patio space.
can’t cook on it,
usually a matter of firecode. where I am, it’s illegal to have wood burning fire pits or charcoal grills, but gas grills are fine. Also, turkey friers.
These rules are because people are stupid and have caused apartment fires numerous times with these things. can you use charcoal safely? sure. Also, another reason smoking is generally illegal. there’s always that one smoker that forgets to clear out the ashtray every so often and that catches fire. (or they put a tissue in it or something, and that’s not at all fire retardant.)
can’t display any thing like a flag or banner on the balcony because of some made up aesthetic code, etc.
not actually legal. if there’s a residential building code that bans political speech (banners, flags, etc) then that’s a first amendment violation. The apartment can (maybe) ban things in their contract agreement, but that’s not a building code. that’s a contract agreement, and as long as it’s not exactly graphic, it probably falls into the “unenforceable” category.
So, a bit of discussion about a hypothetical me has spawned from this and I’ll say some things here:
I am from the US, have mostly rented in the PNW.
I am aware that smoking is bad and can affect other people, and that idiots running grills can be very dangerous, but I’m old enough to remember when these used to be a major use case for residential balconies.
AFAIK, generally, you can still do these things if you own (or even rent) a house in a lower density area with a balcony or patio.
Hell, I’ve lived in places and with roommates who are entirely capable of nearly burning down an apartment complex by not knowing how to cook on the oven/range in their apartment, or by just smoking inside and woops that cigarette butt or spliff or joint missed the tray.
I’m not saying it should be the case that we ignore safety concerns in more dense housing, I’m more just pointing out that things which many people are used to be able to do on some kind of residential balcony are not actually doable as more and more people live in rentals.
As for clothes lines, decorations, hell in some places even public drinking of alcohol on a balcony all being technically legal to some extent but still being against a rental contract:
Surely you are aware that the landlord and property managers hold basically all the power in these situations unless you have the time and depth of pockets to legally challenge their usually illegal frivolous stipulations.
They can just fine you and threaten eviction or withhold your security deposit, and it will almost always be 5x to 10x less expensive to just accept this than to attempt to challenge it.
Hell, I have literally never received my security deposit back, anywhere I have ever rented, despite doing no actual ‘damage’ to the unit. They will always just invent some reason to withhold it.
… Anyway, my main drive here isn’t that you should just be allowed to do whatever you want on an apartment balcony, its that these balconies are functionally useless to the renter due to them being designed as an afterthought to drive up rental costs, as well as having all kinds of functionally real restrictions unless you want to get into a legal fight with your landlord.
Basically, at a glance, the balconies are just scams, false advertising that looks like a neat bonus at first, but then you realize you can’t actually do anything on them besides maybe sit on a chair on them, if one will even fit.
interesting that charcoal is banned but gas is fine. I’ve never had the grease accumulated on the bottom of the grill catch fire on a charcoal grill, but with a gas grill…
gas can be turned off, charcoal can’t.
it’s caused way more fires than uncleaned gas grills. mostly because people go inside to eat and forget about the coals (an then the wind comes up or something happens and sparks fly).
My friend had a balcony so small that one person had to crab walk out sideways and then a second person could stand in front of the door. We still stood out there and smoked though. The view was nice.
You can blame Jeff Bezos, George Clooney, and Nestle for that.
You’re going to have to walk us through that one, please.
I figure Jeff Bezos and Nestle ARE guilty of so much evil shit that they get away with, that it’s not actually in bad faith to blame them for things they had nothing to do with. They can accept blame for SOMETHING for once in their miserable god damned evil lives.
As for Clooney…well he’s just a smug bastard, and my Clooney bashing is well known here on Lemmy.
So you CAN blame them all for whatever it was we were talking about. Doesn’t make it true…per se…but you CAN blame them for it! Because fuck them anyways!
Ok. So you’re 15 and ‘edgy’.
97% of the time, the average car just sits in the parking space, taking up space not being used.
I guess you can say something similar applied to balconies. They are probably being used, but only a small portion of the day.
Depends on where you live. In Japan, most of the time it’s either way too hot to hang out on the balcony or way too cold. In Europe it’s fine in many places for most of the year.
Some of it also has to do with rent prices which can be higher if you have a balcony.
Also, and again in Japan: There is an emergency balcony exit in some apartment buildings in case a natural disaster hits. It’s probably easier to climb your way down a bunch of balconies with holes in the ground than a blank wall
I live in Berlin, and while I don’t have a balcony myself, I spend a lot of time enviously starring at my neighbours that do, as they use them quite a bit.
…smokers…
A friend of mine in Toronto is forbidden to smoke on his balcony now.
300sqft for $3500/month and they’re not even allowed to smoke?
You couldn’t pay me to go out on a balcony if it’s higher than 1 story. Fuck heights.
I had a friend that was drunk and was smoking and leaning back on a balcony and went over. No one even heard him. One minute he was there, the next minute he was gone. No one even looked down for a few minutes because people were regularly coming and going from the balcony and people just assumed he went back inside.
Broke both his arms, his neck, fucked up his back, and had a major concussion. I think maybe he broke some ribs too. Really fucked him up. He didn’t die, but the head injury caused a dramatic personality change and the neck and back stuff created chronic pain.
Another guy I knew intentionally jumped off a dorm balcony and severely and multiply fractured both his legs and fucked his knees forever.
Don’t… uh, accidentally drop from great heights, people.
I’m sorry to hear about your friend. I hope he’s doing well, all things considered. I will refrain from being drunk on a balcony. I don’t like being drunk anyways.
As a counterexample, look at the Marina City towers in Chicago (aka the corncobs); all of the units have balconies, and the balconies are definitely a selling point. They’re quite large; in the case of the studios, the balcony can be nearly as large as the living space. (I think that I recently saw a nearly all original condo in Marina City go up for sale in the mid $400s? It was an interesting time capsule.)
And yet I never see people on the corncob balconies
I’ve seen people on them. Not a ton. But I would see people on them every so often when I was heading to shows at House of Blues, usually later in the evening in the summer and early fall. I can’t imagine using them in the middle of winter, when it’s -10F and winds are whipping around at 30mph.
There aren’t many smokers anymore, and small apartment balconies were usually used for smoking.
I use mine! Actually I made sure to.look for an apartment with a balcony since I have pets
Me too. I have an outstanding rocking chair out there for reading. We also have a tiny table between two chairs, perfect for drinks.
Edit: I just set a reminder for tomorrow morning to go out before it gets warm.
Maybe in order to give each resident the same chance to jump?
/s
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People want the option to use their balcony. Then they realize it’s usually not so pleasant being exposed like that to the sun, wind, temp.
Agreed! They’re always filthy/dusty and annoying to clean.
And even though no one gives a shit enough to stare, it’s hard not to feel… watched.
Just put walls on there, problem solved.
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plants and barbecues
Except BBQs are often against fire code so they’re not allowed 😭
where I am at we can only use electric. Would seem wierd to me to not allow any.
Are you in Europe? In the US, our 120 volt mains limit the size of what can go in our normal outlets. I’ve never seen an electronic grill, unless you mean something that we would call a griddle.
TIL, thanks!
certain ones can sometimes be allowed, go figure. fire is different depending on what’s producing it!
I occasionaly hear about people having their freezer out on the balcony. It makes sense for colder countries, as the temperature difference would be lower than if it were inside. But on the other hand, I’m pretty sure most freezers are not built to endure weather.
I have a cooler like what you would bring to a beach out on mine. In summer can put ice in it and keep stuff cold and in winter it helps keep cold things from freezing.
