Germans have this Do-It-Yourself culture. Most families are used to painting walls, hanging wall paper and tiling floor and walls by themselves. My parents, in contrast, would always have someone do those jobs for them. This cultural difference is explained by different aspects, I’d say.
First, I think this has a little to do with the difficult time after the war. There was no money and lots had to be rebuilt. Women had an important role in starting over because lots of men were either dead or prisoners of war. I remember watching a video at an exhibition in Berlin where some women were removing stone by stone trying to clean a city which was in ruins after the war.
Second, nowadays they have the right equipment which enables them to renovate the whole house more easily and fast. While in Brazil most workers still hammer tile by tile off manually, here they use a special drilling machine for this purpose. If you ask me why they don’t do the same in Brazil, I’ll have to say I don’t really know the answer, but I guess it can be too expensive and even “unnecessary” to invest in equipment if you consider the cheap workforce you have in the country.
Third, I think it’s the price professionals here charge for such jobs. Service here is usually more expensive because people have companies and pay taxes for that. In Brazil we can always find someone who can do the job without making it “official”.
In order to supply people with all the equipment, material and ideas they need to build things at home, there are DIY and home improvement shops in every city in Germany.
But the DIY culture is not only restricted to renovating the house. Maids here are not that common and people are used to doing all the housework on their own. Besides, cleaning, as I have mentioned in an earlier post (Water), is not that hard. Almost everyone has a vacuum cleaner, a dish washer, a washing machine and lots of gadgets and products which, believe me, are a big help.
Cleaning ladies charge by hour and have a very different image from their counterparts in Brazil. Lots of women who work cleaning other people’s houses or offices are housewives (sometimes even older ladies) who want to improve the family budget with some extra money. They go to work by car and usually live in a comfortable house or apartment.
Well, but since I can’t afford a maid, I’m afraid I have to finish writing this post and get back to my housework. 😦