Pictured above is a rather tame version of something you can see in apartment buildings all over the city, people putting their junk into the hallways.
This started out as a place just to put shoes. Taiwanese don't like to wear shoes inside the home, so they usually will have a cabinet for shoes outside their home, with a stool for sitting on to take off your shoes and put on some slippers.
Eventually this practice expanded to make hallways into garages/storage areas. They put helmets, umbrellas, sports equipment, tools, etc. out in the hallways. As I said the picture above is a rather tame version, while most apartment buildings have their hallways full of stuff. Essentially putting anything that they don't want/need in the house, but still want to keep. So old clothes, toys, computer parts, whatever you'd probably find on an episode of storage wars.
This always makes me a bit nervous as it seems like a big fire hazard. Not only is it hard to get through most hallways, but all that old stuff would just make any fire spread even faster. Worse yet are the stairwells which are where most people store their old bicycles. Choosing to walk up the stairs rather than the elevator, is like choosing to go through an obstacle course.
I personally don't have anything in the hallway, as I'd feel very uncomfortable impeding somebody's ability to escape from a burning building. But I must admit that the more things I have, and the more I see that people really don't care about others, it has me at least thinking about storing things in the hallway. But then i realize that if i did that, i'd be just as bad, and if i don't have the moral high ground, than what do i have?
