What to do about restaurant making trash in back garden?

another thing that works here is getting the other tenants on board. if u go to the hausverwaltung alone it's one complaint, but if three or four households send the same photo with a short note, it becomes a "problem" instead of a "nuisance". people in berlin are surprisingly willing to sign a shared email if u keep it neutral, like "we'd appreciate a cleaner hof for everyone". no names, no blame.

also check if the restaurant has a terrace or outdoor seating. if they do, the bezirksamt's Gewerbeaufsicht has rules about where commercial waste can sit relative to where food is served. a quick call to them, not ordnungsamt, and just ask if the bin placement is even legal for a gastronomie. they'll tell u if it's worth pursuing. sometimes the restaurant just needs a nudge from someone with a clipboard.

and tbh, if the bins are genuinely overflowing onto a shared path, u can take a photo and post it on nebenan.de or a local facebook group. berliners love a good öffentliche shaming, but keep it factual, no ranting. the restaurant will see it and fix it fast because bad optics hit their google reviews harder than any fine. it's passive aggressive but it works.

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the hausverwaltung route is solid but here's a thing people forget: check ur Mietvertrag or the Hausordnung for any clause about "Ruhezeiten" or "Nutzung des Hofes." if the restaurant is storing trash outside those hours, that's often a lease violation u can point to without being a dick about it. just say "hey, i noticed the hausordnung says the Hof is for residents only, can we figure out a bin schedule?"

another angle: rats. berlin has a real problem with them right now, and the gesundheitsamt actually responds faster than ordnungsamt for food businesses. u don't have to threaten, just call and say "there's a commercial kitchen attracting rodents to a residential area" and they'll do an inspection. the restaurant will get a warning, not a fine, but it forces them to fix the overflow because health inspectors check bin areas.

if u wanna stay super chill about it, talk to the restaurant during their slow hours, like 3pm on a tuesday. bring a coffee or something, ask if they've thought about a smaller bin with more frequent pickups. BSR does have different size contracts, sometimes the restaurant just picked the wrong one and doesn't know they can upgrade for like 20 euros a month. that's a practical fix that helps everyone.

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so i get the not wanting to go full legal on em, that vibe kills everything. but fwiw there's a middle step: talk to the restaurant manager directly, not during rush hour, and frame it as a practical problem for them too. like say the bags block the bike path and someone's gonna trip or a bike will knock em over, that's a liability for their business, not just a smell thing. sometimes they don't realize it's actually their problem until u point that out.

if that does nothing, check if ur building has a Hausmeister or a property management company, even if it's just a small one. they usually have a contract with the restaurant or at least an interest in keeping the courtyard clean for all tenants. send them a photo with a date on it, no drama, just "this is what it looks like on a wednesday". they'll forward it to the restaurant and suddenly it's not u being annoying, it's the landlord being annoyed.

also, if the bins are on public-ish ground or right next to the street, the BSR (Berliner Stadtreinigung) has a hotline for illegal dumping, but that's more for actual trash on the sidewalk. prob not worth it unless it spills over. honestly the smell thing, u could try a cheap trick: buy a small bag of lime or something and ask if they want it near the bins, it cuts the stink a bit while u sort the rest out

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Worth noting that Berlin street names have official umlaut and ß rules that trip people up, so a sign showing "Strasse" versus "Straße" is not actually a spelling error, just an older transcription. Same with "ue" versus "ü" (e.g. "Kantstrasse" vs "Kantstraße"), both are considered valid renderings and you'll see the ß version on the blue Schilder and the ss version on older plaques or in databases that predate Unicode. If the difference you're seeing is between those two forms, there's nothing to fix and both are technically correct.

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if the signs u mean are the old enamel ones on the house facades those are often protected as Baudenkmal so nobody's allowed to correct them even if the spelling is outdated. the binding version is whatever is in the Berliner Strassenverzeichnis plus the entry in the Liegenschaftskataster, so if u tell me the street i can point u to the right Bezirksamt Mitte or Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf page. tbh the merged district thing is real but the facade signs are a separate story, theyre basically museum pieces at this point

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honestly thats super common in Charlottenburg, the district offices were merged from older Bezirke and nobody ever fixed all the Schilder. if its a real street you can check the official strassenverzeichnis on berlin.de, that list is what the Burgeramt actually goes by. which street is it? some of the Kaiserdamm / Kantstrasse signs are notorious for this.

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