Renting

Norway is short about 200,000 housing units.  Technically this means that about 4% of their population should be homeless, as they can’t build houses fast enough for their growing population.  Rental units are few and far between as well.

The newspapers always have more ads in the “wanting to rent” column than they do in the “for rent” column as people from around Europe are flocking to Norway for employment opportunities.

The weirdest thing about renting in Norway is that apartments don’t include heating elements or light fixtures.  The unit is stripped bare.  Most apartments don’t even include a stove or refrigerator.

The laws in Norway favor the renter, not the landlord.  Any place for rent must be made available for at least a three-year period or the landlord must pay the costs of relocating their tenant if they can’t go the distance.  The only exception is if the landlord will be using their place personally, then with three month’s notice, they can ask the tenant to leave.

Rentals are extremely expensive in Norway, as is everything.  A security deposit of three month’s rent is standard.  In our town, a tiny two-bedroom apartment starts at about $1,600 a month, and goes up from there.  But ironically, if a person can afford to pay that much in rent, chances are good they can afford to buy a house, assuming they can find one, because the government has a mortgage interest subsidy program in place for all its citizens.

When we moved to Norway for a year, it took several weeks and much prayer in order to find a place to live.  It all boiled down to who we knew. 

A cousin lived down the street from three duplexes that were sitting empty because the ground under them started sinking.  The builder’s insurance company bought them shortly after they were completed.  In America, that ground would have been considered wetlands, but in Norway, it was just a neighborhood bog.  All was fine until someone down the street blasted out some hillside rock, which acted as the plug for all the water in the bog, and the ground level went down rapidly.  The houses were built on stilts so they were fine, but the insurance company hadn’t yet decided what to do with them, so there they sat, empty.

Another cousin knew the attorney working for the insurance company, so he asked if we could rent one of those “Sinking Houses” for the year we’d be in Norway.  Because of all the regulations around renting out places, the attorney thought it was easier for him if we just became “caretakers” and lived there for free.  So we did.  Hallelujah!

Trespassing

One of the hardest things I’ve had to get used to in Norway is their “right to roam” law.  There is no such thing as “no trespassing”– all their land is open for anyone to traverse over, as long as no harm is done in the process.  Norway doesn’t have lawsuits like America does, so this works fine for them.

All shoreline is also open to absolutely everyone, and it’s illegal to put up a fence or other barrier to keep anyone from accessing it.  If a person builds a house two feet from the water, it’s perfectly legal for someone to stand in front of that house and go fishing, or even cozy up to their porch and have a picnic, if they want. 

Norwegians aren’t rude or inconsiderate, so I’m sure not many would impose on private property so much when the homeowners were present, but when they aren’t there – it’s a different story.

One time we were on a long road trip with some cousins and we stopped in a very quaint little fishing village for lunch.  There were no convenient spots in which to have a picnic because of the rocky shore, so the cousins just walked around until they spotted a nice house where no one seemed to be home.  They knocked, just to be sure, then took up residence on their back deck overlooking the harbor.  Both Kory and I gasped at such a daring move, as we sheepishly sat down on someone else’s picnic table, but apparently, it’s not that uncommon of an occurrence. 

When we’ve been up hiking in the mountains and have taken new trails back down, we often end up behind someone’s house.  My instincts are to go back up the trail and find another way out, but Norwegians just tromp on through the yard to get to the street out front.  It just seems so wrong. 

One time we couldn’t find the beginning of a trail to a popular destination we wanted to see, so we stopped to ask a local farmer where it might be.  He pointed in the direction and then led us to and through his barn and on in through the goat pen and up a steep hillside.  And that, honestly, is the way everyone must go.    

The only law in Norway protecting private property that I’m aware of, has something to do with not setting up a tent and camping overnight within about 35 feet of a building, but otherwise, camping for a night is allowed just about everywhere, even in someone’s goat pen.  And if you slip and hurt yourself on a pile of goat droppings, it’s your own darn fault, not theirs.  

BANKING

The banking system in Norway is quite different than that of America. Norway stopped using checks years ago. Everything is now paid for with debit cards or electronic transfers and hardly anyone uses cash.  In fact, some bank branches and many businesses won’t even accept cash.  A new law is now in the works that would force people to use only credit or debit cards on items costing the equivalent of a hundred dollars or more – as a way of cutting down on “black money”- cash acquired doing work under the table.

All bills in Norway, from every company, including charities, have a standardized payment form so it’s easy to get the hang of how to pay them because they all look identical. For those people who aren’t connected to the Internet, they can go to the bank and a teller will pay everything for them from their computer.  It costs a bit more to do it that way, but nothing in the Norwegian banking system is free.  At least I’m getting nearly 4% on my savings account over there, though.

It’s a little bit disconcerting to me to walk into banks and see all the couches and areas in which to “relax,” but it’s necessary because based on my experience, the average amount of time a person spends waiting in the bank, is at least thirty minutes.  I guess it’s their way of encouraging on-line banking.  They have a “take a number” system so everyone just lounges around waiting for their number to be up.  It feels more like a doctor’s office waiting room, with magazines and newspapers sitting on coffee tables, than a bank. 

Every bank I’ve been to in Norway just has one teller working and they never seem to be in a rush to move on to the next customer.  One helpful thing many Norwegian banks have though is an automated teller that’s more sophisticated than the ATMs we have in America.  Norwegian ATM’s inside the bank accept cash and coins. 

Once when I was “relaxing” in the bank, I just sat with my eyes closed and listened.  It sounded a little like Vegas in the old days when the coins clinked down into the metal hopper under the slot machines.  There was a line-up of customers bringing in bags of coins and dumping them into the machine, which counts and sorts them and automatically deposits the money into their account.  A separate slot accepts the paper money, counts and deposits it as well.  I guess Norway needs to make it easy to get rid of the cash, since it’s obvious they are on a fast track to becoming the first cashless country in the world.  Scary.

Television

Twenty years ago, no violence whatsoever was allowed on Norwegian television.  Any scene with even so much as a slap to the face was edited out, as America edits out sex scenes and cursing. Nudity and sex have always been OK on Norwegian TV, though, because Norwegians consider that just a natural part of life. And swear words have never been bleeped out because Norwegians pride themselves on true “freedom of speech.”  Back then, however, even violent movies were completely banned from the country because the government didn’t want violence to influence their culture.  Yet, they studied in great detail the history of the Vikings, so go figure.

Norway was a much different place in the 1990s than it is today.  It’s shocking how much has changed in just two decades.  Many of those changes, I believe, have been from the influence of American television on that otherwise isolated and pristine culture.

In the 1990s there were only a few public television stations that broadcast minimal hours a day.  Think PBS – a children’s program in the morning and news in the evening. A movie might be shown once a week, but it was more likely from the BBC than Hollywood. 

Nowadays, every house in Norway has cable television with many disgusting programs not at all suitable for children, but they watch them anyway.  Many televisions are on non-stop with hundreds of channels from around the world available at the touch of a button.  American TV is the most popular, with The Simpsons and South Park (a raunchy adult cartoon), the biggest hits with the kids.  Most programs have Norwegian subtitles and only the littlest children’s programs are dubbed.  It’s easy to spot the grade school kids who watch a lot of TV because their English is much better than their peers.

In 1990, one of our relatives had foster children.  I was curious why someone would lose custody of their kids, since the whole Norwegian culture revolves around family life.  I inquired - was it drugs? Abuse? Alcoholism?  No, came the answer, the parents had bought a satellite dish and allowed the children to sit in front of the TV day and night.  The children weren’t getting their homework done or going outside to play with other children.  The government thought that was no way to raise a child, so they put them in foster care until the parents realized the error of their ways and received counseling. My how things have changed.