Funky apartment oddities

I have already mentioned some things that are normal and regular about Paris apartment living, such as the stairs and the code.  I could also add a couple more:

1. The hot water is EXCEEDINGLY hot out of the tap, and it is heated only on demand.  The on-demand part I like (no tank to keep heated = big savings on gas bill), but the temperature I do not.
2. Most buildings have a gardienne, normally a woman who lives in the building and who is responsible (in theory) for keeping the public areas clean, distributing the mail, and knowing everyone's business.  Ours lives on the ground floor and keeps some lovely, healthy plants in the small courtyard adjacent to her apartment; we have been admiring a huge, beautiful lemon on her lemon tree.
3. There are common garbage cans for the building, not unlike the ones we have at home (just smaller, so they fit through the interior doors), and there are a couple of bins for recycling, as well.  These reside in the same courtyard with the aforementioned plants, which rather kills the garden atmosphere, but oh well.

Having noted these items, I will now try to explain the oddities of our particular living space.  I will admit that these oddities were less surprising or stress-inducing than they would have been before we lived in France (you can read about those details in older blog entries, if you like).

This time, we knew in advance that the place was a duplex.  Which means that there's a staircase within the apartment.  We enter on the lover level and climb a metal spiral staircase to get to a good-size bedroom where the children are sleeping, head to toe, in a queen-size bed.  This arrangement seems to be working out so far, for which I am grateful.

Also upstairs:  la salle de bain.  This is French for bathroom, but this is not a euphemism for toilet:  this space comprises a sink and a small tub.  There is no toilet in this room (although I did bring a potty chair with us and placed it in there).

So, where is the toilet, I hear you ask?  Excellent question.  It is not unusual for the toilet to be in a separate space from the sink and tub (hence the use of the term WC, or Water Closet, even in French), but they are ordinarily close together.  Our toilet is downstairs, on the main floor of the apartment, but it not quite officially inside our apartment.  See, I told you there were oddities!

This apartment was originally larger than it is now.  There are clearly two entry doors on each floor of the building, one on the right and one on the left as you approach each landing, so the original configuration involved two apartments per floor.   Once inside our entry door, however, there are two apartment doors.  The one directly ahead is rented by a woman who works for Tiffany's (at least that's what my landlord told me).  The one on the right is our apartment, and we have a key to that door.

But in the vestibule area between these two doors is our toilet.  Once inside the door, there's a small foyer that leads to the kitchen/dining room through which you can access the living room (where my bed is and from there, the spiral staircase.  And I like to keep my apartment door locked, thank you very much, so I must unlock the door, with the key, in order to get to the toilet.  And since the landlord just installed a new floor, the door does not swing open smoothly or easily.  Good thing I brought that potty chair!