It’s normal for deposits to build up over time in the bathtub’s drain pipe. Shampoo and soap residues, along with remnants of cleaning agents, tend to accumulate there, and the bathtub is often clogged by hair as well. Please do not try to unscrew the strainer, as this can loosen the trap under the tub and cause water damage! If you’re a professional, you can remove the maintenance panel to access the trap beneath the bathtub. Be cautious when using compressed air or pressure washer pumps. Excessive pressure can loosen the pipe connections under the tub, which may lead to water damage! However, you don’t have to call a professional right away; you might be able to help yourself with these tips: - Clean the Drain Strainer: Thoroughly remove any dirt and hair from the drain strainer. You can also use a toothpick or cotton swab. - Baking Soda/Baking Powder and Vinegar: Pour three tablespoons of baking soda or one packet of baking powder into the drain opening, then add half a cup of vinegar. It may and should foam, so keep your nose away from the foam. After 20 minutes, flush with hot water. - Pumping Action: If that doesn’t work, fill the tub with water—about 10–15 cm should be enough. Block the tub’s overflow with a cloth. Fill a 1-liter PET bottle halfway with water, hold the bottle at the drain, and squeeze it to pump water into the drain. Release until the bottle refills, then squeeze again. Repeat this pumping action several times; you will likely see dirt particles rising. If none of these methods work, you can send a damage report email to our caretaker. He will use a so-called small spiral to mechanically clear the blockage. You can also try using the small spiral yourself—ask for advice at the hardware store, where the spiral can be found in the sanitary section. However, please do not unscrew the strainer. Insert the spiral through the openings in the drain, rotate and push it into the drain pipe, and occasionally pour water to see if the blockage has been cleared. Finally, thoroughly flush with hot water. Additionally, you will find many options for chemical drain cleaners. However, we have not had good experiences with them so far. With non-liquid drain cleaners, the blockage can harden and worsen the problem.

It’s normal for deposits to build up over time in the trap and drain pipe. Soap residues and remnants of cleaning agents accumulate there, and the sink is often clogged by hair as well. Most of the time, your trap under the sink is partially or completely blocked. If you have about an hour to spare, you can dismantle the trap, clean it with a brush or cloth, and then reassemble it. This is always the best method to eliminate the problem. You can also order a new trap, dismantle the old one partially or completely, and install the new one. Of course, traps are available at any hardware store. It helps to take a photo of the trap beforehand or bring the old trap as a sample. This way, the specialist can assist you and help you avoid a potential mis-purchase. Here are some tips to help you initially: - Thoroughly remove any dirt and hair from the drain strainer; you can also use a toothpick or cotton swab. - Baking Soda/Baking Powder and Vinegar: Pour three tablespoons of baking soda or one packet of baking powder into the drain opening, and then pour in half a cup of vinegar. It may and should foam. Keep your nose away from the foam. After 20 minutes, flush with hot water. If that hasn’t helped, fill the sink with water—10–15 cm should suffice. Block the overflow on the tub with a cloth. Fill a 1-liter PET bottle halfway with water, hold the bottle at the drain, and squeeze it so that water is pumped into the trap. Release until the bottle fills again, and then squeeze again. Repeat this pumping action several times. You will likely see dirt particles rising. If that still doesn’t work, you can send a damage report email to our caretaker. It is possible that the drain pipe after the trap is blocked. The caretaker will use a “small spiral” to mechanically clear the blockage. You can also try it yourself with the small spiral. Get some advice at the hardware store—the spiral is usually found in the sanitary section. It’s quite simple: dismantle the trap, rotate and push the spiral into the drain pipe, occasionally pour water from a bottle to check if the blockage is cleared, reassemble the trap, and thoroughly flush with hot water. You will also find many options for chemical drain cleaners. However, with non-liquid drain cleaners, the blockage can harden and worsen the problem.

For your apartment, the cable network operator PŸUR offers fast and stable internet with speeds of up to 1000 Mbit/s for surfing, streaming, or gaming. For households with up to four people who want to browse on multiple devices simultaneously, affordable internet plans with bandwidths of 250 Mbit/s are available. If you work regularly from home or participate in frequent calls, download speeds of 500 Mbit/s are recommended. With the 1000 Mbit/s plan, all household members can stream or game at the same time. You can find all the plans at PYUR.com. There are options for internet flat rates both without and with landline telephony, as well as TV with entertainment packages and high-definition HDTV. Choose according to your individual needs at PŸUR. In your apartment, there are also connections/sockets for telephone landline service with DSL plans that include internet, telephone, and TV. For Telekom customers, there are landline and internet plans with download speeds of up to 250 Mbit/s, combined with Magenta TV entertainment and media libraries. Vodafone also offers in-building plans for landline and internet with Giga-DSL speeds of up to 250 Mbit/s, also in combination with TV entertainment featuring SD and HD channels and media libraries. On comparison portals – for example, Verivox – you can get a good overview of the providers’ offers, where you will also find deals with new customer bonuses and other discounts. For the buildings at Gärtnerstraße 31 and Wühlischstraße 39, we are currently supporting several providers for a fiber-optic connection by permitting it early on; therefore, we are involved in the planning. It won’t be faster than 1000 Mbit/s, but there will be several providers offering this speed. Important: The cable network distribution boxes are all freely accessible in the basement corridors. If a technician needs access, you only need to unlock the basement door. The landline distribution box at Wühlischstraße 39 is also freely accessible in the basement corridor. The landline distribution box at Gärtnerstraße 31 is located in the electrical room. If a technician needs access there, we require a one-week notice, after which we will unlock the door to the electrical room. However, you will still need to be on-site to unlock the door to the basement.

Your Gründerzeit apartment was built in 1904 and equipped with 30 mm thick Brandenburg pine planks measuring 6 meters in length. Compared to its Scandinavian counterparts, Brandenburg pine is significantly older and sturdier, featuring a beautiful and pronounced red heartwood. Due to the tapered installation, plank widths between 200 and 400 mm are possible. For its 100th birthday, in 2004/2005, the renowned Berlin specialist company Sans Souci Parkett painstakingly restored the planks throughout the house. Missing sections were replaced, stove niches were supplemented with historical planks, and the old varnish was removed through a multi-stage sanding process. For the new sealing, a water-based and odourless varnish system from a well-known brand was used. This sealing allows the plank floors to be maintained with minimal care. How long your plank floor remains beautiful depends on how much effort is put into cleaning and maintenance. If you do everything correctly, the floor will remain visually appealing for a long time. Protect the plank floors from scratches – all furniture, especially the table, chairs, and even cabinets, should have self-adhesive felt pads on their legs, which are available at supermarkets or hardware stores. When handing over apartments, we now gladly provide new tenants with a particularly durable assortment of felt pads from our hardware store. For regular cleaning, use a vacuum cleaner with a brush head. Significant time savings can be achieved with the especially wide brush heads for plank floors, such as those from Miele. For mopping, wipe the soiled floors with a floor mop (for example, from Leifheit or Vileda) dampened with a cloth in the direction of the fibers. Be careful not to use too much water; the floor must never be wet. Maintenance products for sealed wooden floors: Add to the mopping water according to the manufacturer's instructions (e.g., one cap of Emsal).

First, note that the radiators remain cold when the outside temperature is above 19 °C. The heating systems are not controlled by so-called heating periods (October 1st to April 30th of the year) but by the parameter of the outside temperature. Furthermore, there is a setting for the target room temperature, which is currently set to 21 °C during the day and lowered to 18 °C at night. This does not mean that the radiators remain cold at night—it only means that, at the same outside temperature, the radiators are warmer during the day than at night. This adjustment accounts for the reduced heat requirement at night. The reason for our modern control technology is comfort. Once a room temperature is reached within thermostat head settings 0 to 5 and feels pleasant, it remains nearly constant despite fluctuating outside temperatures, requiring no manual adjustment unless the heat demand changes. It is important to note that the interior temperatures of the apartments are not measured, and that this control relies on each resident’s personal sense of warmth. Also, the radiator thermostat should not be completely closed but set to “frost protection,” because otherwise the valve may occasionally stick during the summer. A radiator in the apartment remains cold, or one side is cold while the other side is warm or even very warm. If a radiator needs bleeding: 1. Prepare a towel and a small container. 2. Turn the thermostat valve head (the control part on the radiator) to the highest setting (5). 3. Using a bleeding key or a simple flat-head screwdriver, open the bleeding valve on the opposite side of the radiator by turning it counterclockwise until you hear air escaping. It should sound like the gentle release of air from a bicycle tire. 4. Wait until the air has fully escaped and a small jet of water comes out, catching the water with your towel or container. 5. Close the bleeding valve by turning it clockwise. Within about 10 minutes, the radiator should be warm across its entire surface. If a radiator remains cold even after bleeding: The thermostat valve may have become stuck. This problem often occurs at the beginning of the heating season, especially if the thermostat valve was closed during the summer. In this case, prepare a pipe wrench and a small hammer—although usually it can be done without tools. (Please use gloves as the thermostat may be hot, and there is no need to fear water leakage.) 1. First, turn the thermostat head to setting 5. 2. Then, loosen the thermostat head by turning the adjusting nut or by twisting the rear part on thermostat heads with a bayonet lock. This will reveal the small valve pin of the thermostat valve. 3. If the pin moves easily back and forth, the valve is stuck. Gently tap the pin or, if necessary, tap more firmly on the side of the valve. 4. Once the valve loosens, the pin will spring out and will then be hard to press in by hand. You might need to tap several times before it loosens. Once it does, you can reassemble the thermostat valve head. If a radiator remains cold even after loosening the thermostat valve and bleeding: Very rarely, the so-called return valve—which is opened during installation and closed during removal—can become blocked at the radiator. The valve, featuring an internal hexagon, is secured against access by a cover. Should it become blocked during operation, a heating technician must drain the heating water in the basement to replace the valve. The radiators in the building are connected in parallel via the flow and return pipes. That is, in each room corner there are vertical flow and return pipes to which radiators are connected on all floors. These vertically running pipes can be manually disconnected from the heating circuit in the basement using a zone valve. We must perform this work. If all the radiators in the apartment remain cold: If every radiator remains cold at low outside temperatures, please contact us immediately. Our service includes prompt assistance in cases of heating failure. We will come immediately to resolve the issue. In addition, we work with two specialist companies that support us with planning and installation and conduct annual maintenance. We also have an emergency call number available outside of regular business hours, meaning an installer is available on weekends and at night for emergencies.

If your kitchen sink gurgles and the water drains slowly—or not at all—it usually means that the siphon in the sink base cabinet beneath the sink is partially or completely blocked. If you have 2–3 hours, you can disassemble the siphon, clean it with a brush or rag, and then reassemble it. This is almost always the best method to resolve the problem. In most kitchens, IKEA sinks are installed. You can also order a new siphon, partially or completely disassemble the old one, and then install the new siphon. IKEA siphons are available for sinks with one or two basins, and—if the sink base cabinet has drawers—as a space-saving siphon. Before ordering, it’s best to watch some DIY videos, for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXh4kuLl-1o&ab_channel=sebastian If you’d like to try another approach, you can find helpful tips for cleaning the siphon here: https://www.obi.de/magazin/bad/abfluss-reinigen IKEA siphons are too angled to be effectively cleaned with a drain cleaning snake or brush, although such devices work well on the drain pipes leading from the siphon into the house’s plumbing system. For kitchen clogs, we strongly advise against hiring drain cleaning companies. Try it yourself or ask a friend—it’s not difficult, and drain cleaning providers are often not very reputable. If you need further help, please contact us. One more tip to avoid this problem: Grease and food residues cause deposits in the siphon and drain lines. To prevent these deposits, pans and pots should be wiped down with a paper towel (which should then be disposed of in the residual waste) before washing.