No Matter What You Call it, We Call Our Fort Wayne Apartment Community Home!

Around the world, people use several different names for what we commonly call an apartment..

While the American term apartment is becoming more common, people in many English speaking countries often call their rented housing unit a flat.  Even here in the US, the term flat is often used in large cities to describe an apartment that’s all on one level.

In Scotland, they call it a tenement, which was the first name for American apartments in large cities.  The name tenement has a negative connotation because early tenements often had no heat, or running water.  The first tenements were single family homes broken up into private rooms to offer housing for the large crush of immigrants entering the country at that time. Renters  then had few choices about the type of home they could afford or even find for their families.

Down under, in Australia, they still call rented housing units a flats, but the term apartment is becoming more common there today. In France, you may hear the term maisonette, or small home, when someone refers to an apartment usually with two floors and an internal stair case.

In Russia, a “communal apartment,” or Kommunalka is a private room with a kitchen and bath you shared with other tenants. These were more common following the Russian Revolution in 1917 when the government seized the estates of the rich and turned them into communal housing, but still exist in Russia today.  You might remember the communal apartment in the film “Dr. Zhivago” (Thank you wikipedia for the info.  For more, click here.)

Here at Willow Creek Crossing Apartments in Fort Wayne, IN, we use conventional American names for our apartments:  One bedroom, two bedroom, three bedroom and townhome.  Wherever you’re from and whatever term you use, we hope you’ll soon call Willow Creek Crossing home.
Rose Clevenger