Is it really that hard to find a painter in this city or am I just unlucky?

honestly the website thing is a waste of time here, most handwerker in berlin are booked out through word of mouth or their whatsapp business line. try calling direkt, no email, and ask for a "Kostencheck" or mention u know it's a small job, that filters out the flakes.

for tapezieren specifically, look for "Maler- und Lackierer Innung Berlin" on their site, they have a list of members who actually do wallpaper, not just spray paint. also check nebenan.de, the neighborhood app, people there always recommend their own hausmeister or a guy they used for their altbau renovation, that's how i found mine.

and yeah ebay kleinanzeigen is 90% scammers or guys who quote 500€ over the phone then vanish. if u do use it, only pay after work is done, never deposit. also try myhammer but filter for "bewertungen" over 50, those guys have a reputation to lose.

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yeah wallpaper is a whole different beast, most painters here only do flat paint jobs for landlords. if u want tapezieren done right, ask for "Altbau-Spezialist" specifically, those guys actually know how to handle old walls that aren't straight.

another route is the facebook group "Handwerker Berlin gesucht" or whatever it's called, it's basically a swap meet for locals who've been burned before. people post their good guys with photos of the work, way more real than taskrabbit which is all young dudes who can't do a proper overlap seam.

also try calling a few malerbetriebe in the outer districts like neukölln or spandau, not the trendy ones in mitte or prenzlauer berg. they're cheaper and actually show up, just don't expect them to speak much english. my guy charges 45€/hr cash and did my whole living room in two days, no drama.

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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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