Here in Sweden almost every apartment, including rentals, have a storage room in the attic or the basement which is very convenient if you live in a smaller space and don't want to clutter your living area. How common is this in the rest of Europe, and if you don't have one and live in a small apartment – how do you cope?
36 comments
Not very common, but not unheard of. More common in suburban new developments that usually have a common pool and recreation areas too.
I just leave half of my things in my old room at my parents home
It‘s very common, but if your building is old (19th century old) and the storage in the basement, these rooms are often quite moist, so their usability is limited. Storage rooms in attics are rare, but sometimes- if they haven’t been upgraded to rooftop apartments- they are used for drying laundry.
In Denmark it is the norm to have at least one (either basement or attic). Sometimes both.
Very common, majority of apartment complexes have them. Sometimes it is small closed room and in older buildings there is one big room divided to wooden or metal cages (so you still have your private locked space).
I’m in Sweden too and for the first time in my life I don’t have a storage unit. It’s very unusual and sort of annoying. I’ve solved it by asking to keep a few boxes and things in my mother’s storage unit instead, which works but it isn’t really ideal
I live in Greenland. Technically not in Europe, but still kinda. Here, basically all apartments have a storage room. Usually it’s a separate door right next to the apartment entrance door.
A storage room? I was gonna say not at all. But most apartments have a department in the basement as storage. I guess that’s that.
In Poland some apartment buildings have a basically little rooms in the basement you can put stuff in, usually padlocked. Sometimes shared sometimes private.
Mine doesn’t unfortunately which sucks.
I’d go as far as to say it’s close to 100% (including rentals).
(Germany) In all flats I rented I had some storage. They were very different in quality and size:
Best: 25m² of clean, dry storage on the same floor
Worst: <4m² of damp basement, very narrow, only fit for 1 bike, full of spiders
It was the same when I “English ” lived in Finland for over 20 years.
Also, a lot of 60’s + built houses in the UK have a Store room next-door to the kitchen. When I was younger, my parents’ new build had one almost as big as the kitchen itself. It opened to the kitchen and to the outside.
All apartments will have storage, usually in the basement/ground floor. Some have a storage/laundry room inside the apartment but that’s less common.
If you’re in an apartment building, you’ll usually get a small storage space on the ground floor where you can keep your bicycle and such.
I have a storage room in my apartment where I can also place the washing machine and such. I think it is quite normal here in the Netherlands
It’s in laws here in Iceland, when you build a house/apartment you must have storage I think 9M2 correct me if I’m wrong.
My apartment building in Norway is from the late 60s and all the apartments have three storage rooms each in the basement. Fortunately nice and dry.
Very common. There’s a bomb shelter beneath of almost all apartment houses, and that is often used as a storage space
Whatever storage room we have is usually just where the boiler lives.
In Greece is not very common in the older buildings. Usually there is a storage space over the bathroom where you can put stuff. In the newer buildings I think is common practise
In many towns in Italy the building codes for new houses / flats require to have a certain surface percentage reserved for a storage room; it can be connected or not to the living area, and may be combined with the garage (itself compulsory as well)
Very uncommon in Russia. Some new blocks of flats offer them, but you have to pay extra to get one.
Very common in Norway. We were lucky enough to buy an apartment that has one storage room in the basement of the building and one inside our apartment.
One place I used to live, in Trondheim, had a cold storage room in the basement and each apartment had a locker in there, for storing food. That was a nice idea but I never seemed to use it much!
Estonia
Depends on the building.
I would say something like 75% of apartments have one.
In newer buildings you buy one out like a parking space and they are on your deed so the ownership of storage goes with apartment, older apartments it’s just ” oh apartment x has used that part of basement so the next owner will use it too” unofficially.
Very common in new-ish apartments in Spain (15-20 years old) not so much older ones.
At least in Madrid they usually build them with a parking spot on the underground and storage room close to it
In Switzerland it’s standard, in the UK it’s not, apartment storage space is horrendous there
Pretty common in Portugal Ours is in a building dating from the early 2000s but I think 5 out of 6 apartments we looked at a couple of years ago had storage.
Not very common in apartments here. Developers focus more on parking provisions instead.
Even our new build houses are much smaller than they used to be and have very little storage.
I’ve never seen, let alone lived in, any apartment that didnt have a basement compartment.
No one from Ireland has answered.I bet you can all guess why.
Very common in typical bygårder (terraced multi-floor buildings of flats arranged around a courtyard), found in the inner suburbs of Norwegian cities between the centre and detatched-house suburbs. Seems less common in new-build flats. Useful for storing bikes and stuff, often a cellar divided into lockable ‘cages’ and each flat gets one. New build blocks seem like they have them less often, instead having car parking spaces underneath.
Pretty common in Hungary. One of our neighbors even used it as a sewing room for her small business. Most buildings also have a common storage room, which is usually subjected to gradual occupation by one of the residents, going from “just putting these few things here, for a short while” to “this room as always been for my stuff” so imperceptibly that you’ll never be able to pinpoint the exact time it became theirs.
It is very common in communist era buildings to have both basement and attic rooms. I think it’s rare to have them both, especially the attic, in modern buildings. However, garages are much more common in newer buildings.
We, personally, have a 24 m2 garage and a 5 m2 “basement” (it’s on the ground level, right next to the garage, but we call it a basement for lack of better term). A lot of people in Bulgaria prepare pickles for the winter and that’s an important usage of basements. I can’t imagine keeping the sour cabbage container inside our apartment 😀
Quite common. There is usually a dedicated small room, often the same room that houses a boiler and/or circuit breakers.
Not very common in Ireland, I’ve actually never seen that, but most individual apartments have storage rooms inside them, usually near the front door
España..Mi piso construido en 1998 tiene trastero,al lado de mi plaza de garaje,en el sotano..
In Italy in most modern buildings (i.e. not the ones as old as 300-400-500 years) you normally have a cellar (we have 2) and it’s really handy.