Apartment living in Paris

Who runs a Paris building

Most Paris buildings are a copropriété: each apartment has its own owner, and together the owners share the stairs, lobby, courtyard and elevator. They meet once a year and hire a property manager, the syndic. The building's rules, the règlement de copropriété, apply to everyone who lives there, tenants included.

Floors and door codes

Floors are counted from the ground floor, so the French second floor is what Americans call the third. You'll get a door code, and often a second one in the lobby.

Noise

After 10 p.m. and before 7 a.m., noise that disturbs the neighbors can bring the police and a fine. Daytime doesn't give you a free pass: repeated or excessive noise is an offense at any hour. Old wooden floors carry sound, so people take their shoes off at home and save the washing machine for the daytime. Having friends over? A note in the lobby is a common courtesy.

Shared spaces

No smoking in the lobby, stairs or any enclosed shared area. Building rules usually forbid leaving bikes or strollers in the lobby or hallways, and hanging laundry at the windows or on the balconies, so the drying rack stays inside. Old elevators are small, so take the stairs when you're moving boxes.

Neighbors

A "bonjour" in the stairwell goes a long way.

The gardienne

Some buildings still have a gardienne or gardien, a caretaker employed by the co-owners. She looks after the building, the mail and the cleanliness of the shared areas. She isn't a hotel concierge and doesn't work for you. She also knows everything about everyone, so treat anything you tell her as if you'd posted it on Reddit.

Gardiennes are usually very helpful, and people adore them. Be friendly and polite, and small favors tend to follow. A box of chocolates or a small gesture is always welcome. A tip is up to you, nothing is expected.

Trash and recycling

Paris sorts its trash by color, and everyone is expected to do it. Sorting starts in your kitchen, where you'll find one bin for food scraps and one for recycling. Then each goes into the matching bin in the building.

Yellow takes paper, cardboard and packaging, loose rather than in a bag. White takes glass bottles and jars. Brown takes food scraps. Green takes everything else, in a closed bag. If your building has no brown bin, food scraps go to the brown terminals you'll see on the street.

Heating and cooling

Air conditioning is still unusual here, partly because old buildings weren't made for it. Where an apartment has it, there's usually a remote in each room. In a heat wave, do what Parisians do: shutters closed by day, windows wide open once it cools down.

Laundry

Depending on the apartment you'll have a washer-dryer in one machine or two separate ones. The all-in-one takes longer than you'd expect and prefers small loads. An indoor drying rack is perfectly normal here.