Mieterverband

Important political signals by the Swiss establishment occurred in the 1990s as the tenancy law was introduced, and the association developed into a consumer organization, focussed to support tenants, such as housing and rent terminations.

[2] As Switzerland is still a country of tenants of well over 60% of the population, now the goals are to lower rents, demand for more cooperative living room, and to take measures against the housing shortage.

An important basis of the then tenanant organizations provided the so-called Wohungsenquenten beginning in 1889, which documented the catastrophic living conditions in urban workers' quarters.

[4] Mieterverband as the today's tenant association was established in 1915, as stuffy and crowded housing, hygiene issues and the fight against diseases in the tenements in Basel and Zürich that was then to compare with present days slums, thus the policy measures forced to become mandatory, basing on the cantonal associations that were established before in Basel and Zürich.

In the early years, these claims were made using a distinct class struggle against the 'class of landlords', but in the following decades political means were postulated much more moderate.