The unwritten rules of a building take a fortnight to learn and a moment to break

The rules nobody tells you because everybody knows them

A lease covers rent, term and damage. It very rarely covers the actual social operating system of a building, which is a set of conventions absorbed over a lifetime by everyone who grew up in that country and by nobody who did not. The gap is where new arrivals get into trouble, usually without understanding what they have done.

These conventions vary far more than people expect between places that otherwise feel similar. Quiet hours may be a matter of law rather than courtesy. Whether shoes come off at the door, whether a stairwell is cleaned on a rota by the residents, whether the balcony may be used for drying laundry — each of these has a settled local answer and it is not the same answer everywhere.

The good news is that the whole system can be learned by observation in about two weeks. Watch what other people do.

Noise is the one that causes actual conflict

Of all the sources of friction between neighbours, noise is far and away the most common, and it is the one where the local rules are most likely to be formal. Many countries have legally defined quiet periods, sometimes including a long midday interval or an entire day of the week, and breaching them is not merely rude but can carry a consequence.

The construction of the building matters as much as the rules. Older buildings with timber floors transmit footsteps in a way that surprises anyone who grew up on concrete, and a normal evening at home can be genuinely disruptive to the flat below without you having any idea. If you are told, believe it rather than defending yourself.

The reverse case is worth preparing for as well, because you will hear your neighbours. What counts as an acceptable level of ambient life differs by culture, and a certain amount of adjustment is required in both directions.

Rubbish and recycling is where the newcomer is most visible

Waste separation is one of the most locally specific systems in existence, and getting it wrong is public in a way that most mistakes are not. Which materials are separated, which day each stream is collected, whether containers must be brought in from the street, whether waste must be bagged in a specific municipal sack — all of this is set by the local authority and none of it is intuitive.

In buildings with a caretaker or a residents’ committee, persistent errors get attributed to the new foreign tenant fairly quickly, which is an unpleasant way to begin. Ten minutes with the municipality’s own guidance, or asking a neighbour directly, prevents the entire problem.

Ask early. A question in the first week is a newcomer being conscientious. The same question in the fourth month is something else.

Communal space, costs and the people who run them

Many buildings have a collective structure of some kind — an owners’ association, a residents’ meeting, a caretaker, a management company — and it makes decisions that affect you even as a tenant. Whether a service charge is included in your rent, who pays for the stairwell light, what happens when the heating fails at the weekend: these have local answers embedded in the ownership structure of the building.

It is worth finding out at the start who to contact when something breaks, and in what order. The chain often runs from a caretaker to a management company to a landlord, and going straight to the top for a blocked drain irritates everybody.

Where there is a caretaker, they are usually the single most useful person in the building, and a good relationship with them solves more problems than a good relationship with the landlord.

Introducing yourself is unfashionable and effective

Knocking on doors to introduce yourself is normal in some countries and faintly alarming in others, so the safer version is to greet people you meet on the stairs and let it develop from there. What matters is being a recognised face rather than an unidentified one, because an unidentified neighbour is who gets complained about.

It also gives you somewhere to direct a question, and questions are how the unwritten rules become written ones in your own head. Most people are pleased to explain how the bins work. It costs them nothing and it makes them the expert.

One last thing worth knowing. In a building where you are the only foreign resident, your behaviour is read as representative in a way that is not entirely fair and is entirely real. That is an argument for learning the conventions quickly, not for keeping your head down.