One house mate cuts up the pizza into little pieces and gets rid of the crust as his 101-year-old friend has trouble chewing these days.
She is 101, he is 28 and they have been living together for 10 months now.
They set up their Berlin house share at a time when both of their lives were changing.
Agnes Jeschke had spent the past 50 years living in a small flat in a neighbourhood in south Berlin.
Amir Farahani fled to Germany from Iran, fearing for his life due to his homosexuality. He came alone, forced to leave his family behind.
He was searching for a flat, a difficult challenge in Berlin where the housing market is under pressure.
Jeschke on the other hand insisted she wanted to stay at her place as long as she possibly could.
Luckily, living together solves a slew of problems.
"People want to stay living in their own familiar environment for as long as possible and only enter an old people's home when they no longer have any alternative," says Ursula Engelen-Kefer, a former trade union leader who now works at the Social Association of Germany.
Often though older people wind up being disappointed as they are unable to rely on a relative or their offspring to take care of them.
That applies to Jeschke, whose husband died years ago. She has no children and was about to move into a home for seniors just after she turned 101, though it was not what she wanted.
A friend came to her rescue. Uwe Eberlein, a long-time buddy, posted an ad online looking for younger people willing to share with Jeschke free of charge.
She got 23 responses from 22 women and Farahani.
"We were actually looking for a woman," says Eberlein. But Farahani asked what a woman could do that he couldn't? Jeschke perked up. "She pulled the chair out for him and was suddenly wide awake," Eberlein says.
Companionship for life
The two got along so well that he moved in later that day.Farahani is currently training to become a nursing specialist and works part-time as a nursing assistant at a Berlin retirement home.
"People there are waiting to die," he says. He knows that the feeling of being at home is what keeps a person alive.
More and more people are sharing their homes with people who are significantly younger, with online services set up from London to Sydney.
In Germany, one intergenerational project in several cities is partly run by student unions, to help find affordable accommodation for younger people who offer to help their house mates in their daily lives.
"Through the project, we bring people together who probably wouldn't have met in any other way – they are in different stages of life and have different life plans," says the union's Julia Sammler. They have set up 10 such partnerships so far.
The needs and motives of those offering space in their homes vary widely, from the desire to learn a new language, to needing help with the shopping, gardening or chores.
Often they also have a powerful need for day to day companionship.
However, "sharing your home with a stranger is always unfamiliar – especially if you've lived alone for several years or even decades before," says Sammler.
Plus, you need to come to agreements, especially living together in a smaller space, and sometimes misunderstandings occur.
Henning Scherf, a former mayor of the German city of Bremen, has lived in a multi-generational house for 34 years, with his wife and eight other people aged between one and a half and 84.
He and his wife said their home suddenly felt big and empty when their kids moved out.
They decided to embark on a new phase, with the enthusiastic backing of friends.
"Our children, who mocked us in the beginning – they said we were late-pubescent romantics, – they're all excited about it now when they visit us," says Scherf.
"With old people, there's always the danger that they'll sit together and just talk about their illnesses and troubles. When you're with young people, it's suddenly so different," says Scherf.
"They don't talk about illnesses, they talk about what they've experienced, what they're up to and what they're doing, how it's going in education or in their relationships. That's where they let us join in," he says.
Big, wide heart
Jeschke, meanwhile, shares her life experience along with "generosity and a big, wide heart," says Farahani.He says the days they spend together are busy and fun. "Sometimes we go shopping together, sometimes we swim or go to a restaurant." They have even gone to the shisha bar or dancing together, he says.
"We get along like two left feet," Jeschke says.
While their days sound fun and relaxed, there are challenges too. "I have to teach her a lot of basic things that we young people do automatically," Farahani says.
That includes eating or drinking, getting dressed or standing up, for example, he says. "With all these little things, there's a risk of her hurting herself, and that's where I have to be careful."
At the start, Jeschke also kept having panic attacks in the night, she says. She had been pretty stressed about the prospect of leaving her home. Now, she's sleeping much better.
Farahani thinks this shared flat concept is a good solution, especially in big cities like Berlin where there's a serious shortage of housing and a large number of single households.
Meanwhile more and more people are likely to be sharing homes with people of different ages and backgrounds as millions flee the war in Ukraine.
Eberlein, who came up with the plan for Jeschke, is already thinking ahead to his home in Berlin's northern Pankow neighbourhood.
He wants to extend the concept so several younger and older people can live together on a whole storey.
"So people can take turns and support each other," says Eberlein.It's about looking out for each other, says Jeschke. When they go dancing, for example, she watches out for the young man. "I have to keep him in line a bit," she chuckles. – dpa
Already a subscriber? Log in
Get 20% OFF The Star Digital Access
Cancel anytime. Ad-free. Unlimited access with perks.
