to play devils advocate i spent like half my childhood in one of these and the stairwell was nasty af with flies buzzing around. The apartments themselves were nice tho
Not unusual, spent some time in the poorer districts of Hamburg and Sydney amongst others and "Terrible Stairwell, damp building, nice but small apartments, needs a bit of work but could be really nice." is pretty universal for anything but between 1930 and 1980.
The only way those would be shitty would be if you had an obnoxious asshole neighbor that needs to make the walls and floors rumble with bass all day.
That's more a cultural problem than a structural one, though. If people weren't so assholish in the US, it'd work.
to play devils advocate i spent like half my childhood in one of these and the stairwell was nasty af with flies buzzing around. The apartments themselves were nice tho
Not unusual, spent some time in the poorer districts of Hamburg and Sydney amongst others and "Terrible Stairwell, damp building, nice but small apartments, needs a bit of work but could be really nice." is pretty universal for anything but between 1930 and 1980.
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did they also have really thick concrete walls between units?
Really depends. Some buildings have thick walls, in some you can hear if your neighbours cough.