Chores 1

When you move to a foreign country even the smallest things can be problematic and that's especially true when you move into a flat in Switzerland. Not only you have to stick what's in your contract such as opening your windows at least twice a day but to perform your chores can be strange at first.
Most of the apartments in Switzerland do not come with a washing machine. I am not totally sure what the reason might be but I guess it has to do something with noise. You are not allowed to make any noise on Sundays or during the evenings that can disturb your neighbors. (This actually not only includes noise but everything else that can disturb anyone in your street. For example you cannot move out/park a van in front of your house during Sunday or on a holiday because the sight of that can disturb people)
Not surprisingly, our apartment does not come with a washing machine either. Instead there is a common room in the attic where you can perform anything related to clean your clothes. Whatever that is. To be precise there are two rooms.
One has a washing machine, a dryer and a sink while the other one is the drying room. What it means is that you are only allowed to put your wet clothes in that room. You are not allowed to hang any wet clothes in your apartment.

When you hang your stuff in the dryer room, you have to turn a machine on that gets all the vapor and drys your clothes in an hour or two.

So how do you know when can you do the washing? You don't really. At least not in our house. In general there is a schedule set up and you have to stick to that. As there are only three apartments in our house we do not have such a thing but obviously that did not help me in the first couple of weeks because I was never sure if I was interrupting anyone's schedule or what. Of course I could ask which I did when we run into one of our neighbors but you do not really go and knock on their doors during evening either.