Residents of St. Pauli, the notorious Hamburg party hub, are taking revenge on the drunken partygoers who have for years been urinating on the buildings and streets.
Local groups recently began introducing “hydrophobic” paint on areas of the city’s busy night club district, aimed at deterring late-night revelers from urinating in public. The paint makes the urine bounce back on the unsuspecting urinator. The move has generated international attention, and led Australian lawmakers to publicly discuss whether to import the concept. “Prohibitions and fines do scarcely anything,” said a member of the group “So we decided to solve the problem our way. Now, St. Pauli pees back.”
The paint was originally developed by Nissan to keep cars clean from dirt, the water-repellent paint acts as a reflector. Public urinators in Hamburg have to be careful now, since only some of the painted walls have warning signs. A fun night might end with wet pants. The hydrophobic paint, also used in shipbuilding, deflects any liquid that comes into contact with it, meaning those who pee on surfaces will find their urine shooting right back at them.
It costs about $700 to cover six square meters with urine-repelling paint, which has raised questions over the idea’s cost effectiveness. Nonetheless, this new innovation in the northern German city has taken the world by storm: pee-proof walls.
