1. Skip to content
  2. Skip to main menu
  3. Skip to more DW sites

St. Pauli pees back

March 5, 2015

Residents of Hamburg's Reeperbahn in the nightclub district of St. Pauli were getting tired of having drunken revelers urinating on their buildings. They found an unusual solution: walls that pee back.

https://p.dw.com/p/1Em5j
groups of people stroll along the neon-lit Reeperbahn at night (Copyright: Hanna Grimm)
Image: Hanna Grimm

A neighborhood association, Interessengemeinschaft St. Pauli e.V., put "Don't pee here" signs all along the Reeperbahn.

Now the people who choose to ignore the message will be punished without further notice. The walls were recently covered with a water-repellent paint that splashes the urine back at the feet of the culprit.

The situation was becoming unbearable, as the spokesperson of the association Julia Staron told the weekly "Der Spiegel," "When you go out on the street here, you think you've landed in the sewer."

The Reeperbahn, also known as "the most sinful mile in the world," is a red light district and nightlife center.

The word is spreading quickly. The video posted by IG St. Pauli on YouTube has already been viewed almost half a million times within three days. The British daily "The Telegraph" also covered the story. The organization sees this as good proof that the expensive paint, usually used in the ship building industry, was a worthwhile investment.

ej,ak/eg (dpa, Reuters, Der Spiegel)