'House burping' is a cold reality in Germany. Americans are warming to it. [View all]

The often mandated practice of airing out homes, no matter the season, has strained and even ended relationships, but it’s gotten a boost on U.S. social media

After moving to Berlin from Honolulu, Wyatt Gordon was surprised when his new German roommate marched into his bedroom at 8 a.m. and threw open the windows.

It turned out that his cohabitant, Laura, maintained a strict ventilation regime. Three times a day, at precise times, all the windows in the apartment needed to be opened. It didn’t matter whether it was the dead of winter or a weekend morning, or if Gordon had company. Rules were rules.

“I had men and women in my bed that I’d brought home from the club or wherever,” said Gordon, now 35, a city planner originally from Richmond. As is common on Berlin weekends, they would crawl into bed around dawn — “only to be woken up an hour later by a blast of ice-cold air,” he recalled. “How do you explain to the person laying in bed next to you that this is what the German culture demands of us?”

How, in other words, to explain lüften?

Lüften, meaning “airing out” or “ventilation,” is dogma in German households. Rain or shine, hot or cold (which, in Berlin winters, can be bone-numbing), windows must be opened several times a day to exchange stale indoor air for the fresh outdoor stuff.

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/2026/02/14/house-burping-is-a-cold-reality-in-germany-americans-are-warming-to-it/?share=rsicnorosbni20iigrot