Dresdner Seniorenakademie Wissenschaft und Kunst e.V. / EFOS-Projekt / VECU Alltagskultur

How we became a house community
Often one gets to know, that tenants of a multi-story building hardly know each other or do not greet each other when they meet. In case of 40 families belonging to one building entrance such a thing can happen easily. In some places such a number of people generate a small village. Every year, children are born, old people die, there are weddings, baptisms, youth initiation ceremonies or confirmations and split ups of partners. One could call it a hot spot.
Now we got the permit for moving into a new house and were naturally happy about it. After the "precision cleaning" of the future living quarters carried out by us and the other tenants the communal building management invited us to the hand-over of keys. Representatives of the new tenants met in a ground floor room and eyed up each other from a distance. An employee of the communal building management hander over a piece of paper and a pencil to one of the future tenants and explained, that the hand-over of keys could only take place could only take place as soon as six names on the paper would state who would make up the house community administration for now. The lady left the room. The attendants looked at each other puzzled. After a period of uncomfortable silence I decided to speed things up and volunteered for the house community administration, but not as a chairperson. Hesitantly, five more people volunteered with the same condition. Now, six names were written down on the paper and the hand-over of keys could take place. Most people were happy. Only the six respective people had to nominate a chairperson. This was the hardest part. It turned out, that all of the six people already participated in voluntary activities, without any salary or allowances, in the enterprise or the neighborhood. I felt that I was busied enough as the chairperson of a board of the engineering association and did not want to call the shots in this case. After a lengthy discussion 5 agreed on the 6th any youngest one to be worthiest of the position. The election was seen as final and the board could get down to action.
Our zest for action was strengthened by the communal building management's note that more than 2000 Mark from the GDR could be used for the numerous cleaning tasks. An inn was found, two small pigs bought and prepared by the inn, a barrel of beer put up in the hall and a band organized.
The invitation placed in the house was accepted by a great deal of the tenants. The party attendants were brought to the inn at the periphery of Dresden by an autobus (then easier to realize than after the strict regulation of the gas contingent).
Soon, with the drinking, eating and dancing, the mood turned festive. Astonishing, how much initial strangers can contribute to the successful outcome of an evening. In the articulated bus on the way home, everybody got along great. We concluded that the money spent for this party was a good investment.
From now on, most tenants greeted each other in the elevator, there was neighborly help, mutual parties in the self-made lounge, house parties, carnival parties and mutual working in the green area, e.g. when the garden agency made available top soil after road pavement we were the first ones to make use of the offer in order to be pleased by our surroundings soon. It worked like this: the person of the house community administration responsible for voluntary work put out some crates of beer and tools and used the intercom to call for men willing to commit on Saturday morning. For whatever reason, there were always enough.
Result: our yard soon became the nicest one.
Most tenants were of the opinion that it was just and equitable that the ones spending most hours on voluntary work were first in line for a garage.
Thus, without forcing anybody (e.g. when somebody did not come to the annual house party to get free drinks and food- from the money for the voluntary work- it is his own fault) we came to be a house community that still exists among the "old ones". After the reunification an election took place that replaced the house community administration with a mixture of "old ones" and "new ones", most of the newly moved in young people assimilated to the house community.