Frequently asked questions

The cleaning agents in the T36 should be ecologically degradable. We mainly buy from the LeDi (food distribution) on site.

Hand soap (Sonnet): We use a liquid soap from the LeDi (the canister is under the sink in the kitchen). In the bathrooms there are white soap dispensers which can be refilled in this way.

Dishwashing liquid (Sonnet): We use a liquid soap from the LeDi (the canister is under the sink in the kitchen). The bottle next to the sink (top and bottom) can be refilled this way.

Vinegar cleaner: At different places there are spray bottles with the inscription “Essig”. These contain a vinegar solution, sometimes with tea tree oil or similar, for cleaning sinks, taps, bathroom, toilet, … This has a limescale dissolving and disinfecting effect. It can also be used to clean the refrigerator and canteen kitchen surfaces. The mixture consists of 50% vinegar (10%) and 50% water, and 10 drops of tea tree oil or 18 drops of grapefruit oil.

Dishwasher (1. floor): We make our own mixture: 2 parts boron, 2 parts soda, 2.5 parts citric acid, 1 part salt. The ingredients are, like the agent itself, under the sink above.

Washing machine (basement): For the washing machine we use different detergents. Please use a biodegradable one, you can also buy one at LeDi.

Other cleaning products (wipers, brooms, squeegees, dusters, old rags, …) can be found behind the door to the basement.

Tip for cleaning the toilets: It is sufficient to use vinegar (10%) to clean the toilet. This should work overnight and loosen the calcifications and dirt. To do this, lower the water level beforehand by banging the toilet brush and then pour in vinegar until the dirt has been removed. The next day remove the dissolved dirt with the toilet brush and repeat if necessary. As an extra you can also use baking soda (foams strongly, you can try it out). Write a sign with a hint and if necessary glue the toilet lid slightly.

Used bed linen and towels can be put in the cellar next to the washing machine. There are two baskets where we collect these things to wash them when we have enough together.

If you need new toilet paper, you can usually find it on the upper floor in the kitchen to the right of the table. We use recycled toilet paper and always try to make sure that there is enough toilet paper in both toilets.

The idea is that all people in the house participate and the house living does not have to do everything, since they usually do a lot anyway. A “care use”. Therefore it is nice if people who do not live in the house but use it in other ways (be it during lunch or in the coworking space) also participate in keeping the house clean. The easiest way to do this is to do the cleaning every second Saturday. However, this usually only affects the lower part of the house.
For the upper part of the house and especially for the upper bathroom there is no fixed regulation. Often people do it voluntarily, if they feel like it. If no one has done it for a long time, we may address this in one of our meetings to find someone who does it.
In general, however, it is of course nice if the rooms that are used are left in an orderly fashion for the people after you. No miracles are expected, but simply that the used glasses are put in the dishwasher or the blankets are folded again, just a respectful handling of the objects of the house and the house itself. Freely according to the motto: Leave every place a little bit better than you found it. Your fellow men will be happy about it.

Basically, the cleaning department should move to the staircase to the basement to have a place where you can find “everything”.

There are a lot of tasks that have to be done on a regular basis. For example, the taking out of the garbage.

Garbage

On each floor there is a paper bin, a plastic bin and a residual waste bin.
To dispose of the plastic and paper waste, you only have to walk a good 40 meters. When you leave the main entrance door, go left through a small path that leads to a small street. Turn left again and you can already see the big paper and plastic garbage cans.
Unfortunately there is no residual waste garbage can there. They are a bit further away – near the foodsharing fair divider and the eAuto loading station.

Garden (watering)

For this purpose, our plants need to be watered regularly – especially in the summer months. In the front garden these are mainly the flowers on the right side, as well as our herbs and tomatoes. In the back, there is a special attention to the boxwoods on the right (when you step out of the kitchen) on the border with our neighbor. There are also some flowers in the sun. Also gladly water the flowers that are behind the hedge at the street.

Compost

For our compost we have a wheelbarrow in the back garden. It has to be emptied regularly (well, when it is full). You can dump it on the compost of the PaLS. Compost bucket upstairs, do not leave any compost downstairs in the kitchen _> fruit flies!

Aftercare

In general, aftercare is also always a good way to get involved. Aftercare is the cleaning and tidying up of the kitchen after meals.
This includes carefully storing all leftovers in the refrigerator, closing the pots and pans and cleaning the surfaces. Something missing here?!
Especially in summer, when we eat outdoors a lot, it often happens that we carry one of our beer tent sets outside. These must absolutely be carried back inside after eating.

In short: We bring the kitchen back into a good condition.

The aftercare is usually done in 20 – 30 minutes with two or three people. On many days, the cooks also do a lot of preparatory work if they have time left over, so that there is not so much to do.
We also want to make sure that the work does not get stuck on a few people, but that everyone contributes a little.

Mailbox

If you feel like it, you can also check our mailbox, but there is rarely any mail in it.

In addition, there are always actions that do not take place regularly or simply have to be done from time to time. Then you can simply ask.

The lower kitchen will be cleaned once every two weeks (currently), in the future we will gladly clean it every week with different teams. Easier for everyone, several appointments, more variable. All people are invited to help with the cleaning.

Basically we wish that all people are careful and respectful with the place and the things of the place, so that it doesn’t get too dirty or untidy in the first place. (Disclaimer: Unfortunately this does not always work).

The bi-weekly cleaning is limited to 90 minutes, during which we clean everything in the lower area. We try to make the cleaning as pleasant as possible. So we usually listen to music and often have some snacks at hand so that it becomes a real cleaning party.
But what really has to be done?
There is one main feature that almost always needs a little attention. These are the oven, the refrigerator and basically all visible surfaces (ask Anna (Matthias has the GoogleDoc))
Add to this the things that are standing around somewhere and the floor that is happy when it is swept and wiped.

In addition to lunch, the T36 also offers plenty of room for social interaction. For many, especially young people, it is a central contact point where they like to go to spend time.
There is plenty of room for own projects. The kitchen also invites you to baking and cooking events.
In addition, there are the individual rooms, which all have additional functions. There is already a lot of information about this on the page “the house”.
Lea’s turn, vision, rooms, social, lunch, etc.

The kitchen and food preparation is based on the work of many people who volunteer to cook and help. On our refrigerator there is a magnetic board on which people who want to cook can sign up for the coming week.
So if no people sign in, there will be no food. But this happens rather rarely.
Otherwise, two or three people cook for the rest of the people who come for lunch at 1 pm. All people have to be invited to the meal, but we can cook a maximum of 30 meals per meal. In the summer months, sometimes almost these 30 people come together, but normally it is more like the 15th person.

A large part of the food we get from the Auehof, an organic farm nearby. Twice a week a team of us goes there and can pick up the vegetables that the Auehof no longer sells and take them away free of charge.
There is also a food sharing cooperation with the EDEKA in Steyerberg. On 3 days of the week Lea and Matthias pick up food from there, some of which comes to us in the T36 and some of which comes to the Fairteiler near the eAuto loading station, which is accessible for everyone.
In addition, there are some people on site who regularly containerize food in the surrounding supermarkets and also contribute food.
We buy some basic food like rice and lentils in the LeDi. This is the small store which is in the main building of the Lebensgarten. However, only members of the Lebensgarten e.V. association are allowed to enter.
At the moment there are sometimes vegetables on Tuesdays, which the FoodForce team collects from the market in Stolzenau.
The PALS (Permaculture Park at Lebensgarten Steyerberg) has a nursery and manages a SoLaWi. Leftover vegetables or surpluses can be used and processed in the T36.

-> Own point “LeDi

-> Own point “PALS

Yes, there are 2 private rooms in the house which are not public. These are the rooms of the residents. In one of them Matthias and Lea live, in the other one the occupation changed more often in the past. The two rooms are completely under the roof. In addition, there is a guest bedroom, which, when occupied, is a private room.
All other rooms are public and freely accessible to everyone.

There are two bathrooms. In one of them there is even a bathtub 🙂

In the cellar is our glass collection. We are currently trying out the following system:
In the big main kitchen there is a blue box under the sink where all glasses are collected. When it is full, the glasses are brought down to our cellar. There we sort them. We keep 6 types of glasses, which are already sorted in the cellar. All glasses that do not fit into these 6 categories come back up again. Outside the house we have two black boxes for those glasses. In the upper one we put all glasses and bottles with a deposit on them and in the lower one all those without deposit.

Cellar as a separate point: Our cellar has two main functions. On the one hand there is our freely available washing machine with clothes racks

In order to organize the kitchen, the house and everything else, we meet regularly to discuss what has happened and what needs to be decided. All these meetings are public. This means that you are always welcome to come by to get an insight, actively participate and influence what we talk about and what is happening in the house.
Here is an overview of the meetings that take place regularly.
– Kitchen meeting 1x per week Friday 14:00 Coworking
– Financial meeting 1x on the 1st day of the month (unless it is a Sunday) 11:00 Coworking
– Meeting T36 & PaLS 1x per month on Mondays 11:00 Coworking

There are also meetings of project groups that work and create around the house. These change from time to time and usually have no regularity. Most of these meetings are public and are announced in advance. You can see this on the kitchen cell phone as well as on the wall of the refrigerator in the kitchen downstairs, where everything is also available for the SoKüWi.
Here is a small selection of the current meetings:
– (Food Force ~1x every two weeks) by arrangement
– House meetings for the residents and users of the T36 from time to time by arrangement

We have a kitchen cell phone. This cell phone has different purposes and uses. First of all it lies on the metal table in the kitchen, has no pincode and is available to everyone. On the back it even says “T36” on it.
On the one hand, it is used to allow people who don’t have access to WhatsApp or Signal to read along in the groups. Of course, this also applies to people who are only here for a few days and are not in the groups. Also, there is always a cell phone in the kitchen, so that messages can be sent quickly from the kitchen as well as into the kitchen. This can sometimes be important when communicating, for example with people who are in the garden.
The cell phone also offers the possibility to give anonymous feedback and to criticize and praise things. For some people it is then easier to attach messages like “The rice pan today was a little too spicy for me”.
In addition, it offers the possibility to view the calendar and thus the upcoming events are visible to everyone.

The financial meeting takes place on the 1st of each new month (unless it is a Sunday). We count the contents of all donation boxes, check our bank account and take pictures of our counter readings in the basement. Then we take stock and see how much money we have collected in that month. We publish our balance sheets in our social media and on our fridge and in the future also here on this website.

There are a total of 6 donation boxes (one opposite the sink upstairs, one in the entrance area, one in the kitchen, one outside the house at our bio-fair divider, one at the snack bar in the entrance, one on the washing machine in the basement)

The house is financed by donations.

Treatise on freedom of exchange logic and financing the house would be good.

Every 1st of the month (entry in list) is included in a statistic
The electricity meter, the water meter and the gas meter are important. Usually Matthias reads them and enters the numbers.

get familiar with financial meetings

For this purpose we have an internal list of questions which we go through. Basically, it is important to us that people don’t just spend their vacations here, but are interested in the project and want to contribute something.
In individual cases, however, the decision always lies with Lea, Matthias and the other residents. It is important to us that all people feel comfortable with the decision if a person stays here overnight.
Have we?

question list:
– Do all current occupants of the T36 feel comfortable with the decision if this person stays overnight in the T36?
– What is the benefit for the T36? What do we expect from this person? (general question: what do we want in return for an overnight stay other than money?)
– Are the basic conditions clear? How many nights will the person stay?

The T36 and PaLS are two different, separate projects. There is cooperation between the two projects, so that volunteers and federal volunteers from the PaLS can have lunch at T36. The T36 independently receives 200€ from PaLS every month. PaLS volunteers are asked to help in the kitchen for 3 hours. The volunteers and BFDler can of course, like all other people, take advantage of the offers and opportunities that the T36 offers.

Every Saturday at noon, the T36 can pick up leftover vegetables from the PaLS and cook them.

We bring our compost to PaLS so that they can use it for TerraPetra or similar.

The house belongs to the Paradise Now Foundation. Tenant is the Achtsamkeit und Verständigung e. V. (AVeV). Matthias signed the lease as one of the project managers.

You will find the most important commandments concerning the interaction with people and the house on our mindfulness sheet, which is posted in several places in the house, for example in the hallway, and can also be found on our website. But many of the rules are actually self-evident.

Linking the mindfulness sheet would be cool. Love you, Matthias 🙂

There are fixed persons in charge (at the moment Matthias and Lea), who are mainly on site and live in the house. In addition there are changing occupancy / team members. The number of occupancy changes.

Lea and Matthias, but basically you can address everyone first.

Emergency numbers
Janitor Paul
Paradise Now e.g. Joos, Samarpan Runge
Contact person from AV e.V.: Matthias, Lea & Bärbel (lives at Heideweg 12)

– Watering boxwoods between Esther and T36
– Watering tomatoes, spices & flowers
– Water herbs on the fair divider in front of the house
– Rain barrels & gutters regulate when it rains

More irregular tasks: Trimming hedges, collecting leaves, mowing the lawn, scratching joints, regularly rearranging sunshade stands

Repairing garden chairs

In case there is no hot water, there is the possibility to refill the heating in the basement. But please do this only if you have received a briefing. If that should happen, which is really not so often the case, Matthias knows best what to do.

Then make a suggestion on how it could be better and either bring it to a meeting or share it with the project management. Often there are reasons why something is one way or another. We are always open for improvements of any kind.