The Stairwell Cleaning Rotation: An Unwritten Rule in Many German Apartment Buildings

The Official Rule

Cleaning the shared stairwell is legally the landlord’s job by default, not the tenants’. Under general German tenancy law, the landlord’s maintenance obligation covers common areas like stairwells and hallways. mietrecht.de’s explainer is direct about this: without a corresponding agreement, tenants have no automatic duty to clean the hallway.

Landlords can shift that duty onto tenants, but only through an actual contract term, not a notice on the wall. fachanwalt.de’s guidance and mietrecht.de both stress the same point: the cleaning obligation has to be written into the lease (Mietvertrag) itself, or into a Hausordnung that the lease explicitly references or that was attached at signing. A cleaning rota simply pinned up in the entryway, with no contractual backing, doesn’t obligate anyone. Once that duty is validly transferred, cleaning costs also become an operating expense recoverable through the Nebenkosten statement under the Betriebskostenverordnung.

Where it exists, the rotation is almost always called a Putzplan (or Reinigungsplan), and courts treat once a week as the standard. The Regensburg district court (AG Regensburg, 11 C 3715/03), a Bavarian court, ruled that weekly cleaning is sufficient absent other agreement. Tenants can usually pick which day, as long as they respect normal quiet hours. The expected scope is ordinary sweeping and mopping, not deep cleaning, and not damage from vandalism or construction debris.

Now the regional distinction that matters most for Munich: the famous “Kehrwoche,” with its door signs and cultural pride, is specifically a Baden-Württemberg and Swabian tradition, not a Bavarian one. The Local’s explainer traces it to a Stuttgart ordinance and describes it as a southern German, specifically Swabian, custom. If you’ve read about “Kehrwoche” online and expect to find that exact word, or a placard reading “this week it’s your turn,” on a Munich stairwell, you likely won’t. That branding, and the folklore around it, genuinely belongs to a different German state.

That doesn’t mean Munich buildings skip stairwell cleaning duty altogether, though. A first-person account from Kreisheimatpflege Dachau, a Bavarian local-heritage office near Munich, describes exactly this distinction from lived experience: weekly stairwell cleaning was mandatory in the various Bavarian apartment buildings the author lived in, but “we didn’t have such a nice sign reading ‘Kehrwoche’ or ‘this week it’s your turn’ on the front door, like is common in the Swabian region.” The obligation exists; the name, the signage, and the cultural apparatus around it don’t.

In practice, Munich buildings split along a fairly predictable line. Smaller, older Altbau buildings without a paid caretaker are the ones most likely to still run a tenant rotation, usually as an unremarkable line in the Hausordnung. Larger and newer buildings increasingly hire a professional cleaning company instead. Haus und Garten München, a Munich-based cleaning provider, frames this directly as a trend, professional Treppenhausreinigung services are increasingly hired specifically to avoid the conflicts that tenant rotations tend to cause, with the cost then split among tenants via the Nebenkosten statement rather than anyone taking a physical turn.

What Real People Say

The most consistent pattern among newcomers researching this topic is confusion caused by the word “Kehrwoche” itself: people arrive in Munich having read about the tradition online, expect to encounter the term or its signature door signs, and don’t, which leads some to wonder whether the whole custom is a myth or just doesn’t apply in Bavaria. What actually happens is more mundane: a rotating cleaning obligation can still turn up in a Munich lease or Hausordnung, it’s simply presented as an ordinary house rule rather than a named regional tradition, so it’s easy to miss if you’re specifically looking for “Kehrwoche.”

The other consistent theme, especially from Munich-based property and cleaning-service sources, is that professional cleaning companies are an increasingly common substitute for tenant rotation in larger buildings, precisely because a Putzplan is a frequent source of neighbor friction, disputes over whether a corner was properly swept, whether a turn was skipped, whether the schedule was even fair to begin with. Outsourcing it to a paid service and splitting the bill sidesteps that friction entirely, which is part of why it’s becoming more common in bigger Munich buildings even where it wasn’t the original arrangement.

Step by Step

1. Check your Mietvertrag and Hausordnung for actual cleaning-duty language, not just whether a Putzplan happens to be posted in the stairwell. A posted plan with no contractual backing doesn’t bind you.
2. If a documented duty does apply to you, confirm the expected frequency and scope, once a week is the standard courts have applied absent other agreement, and only ordinary sweeping and mopping is expected, not deep cleaning.
3. Pick a day that works for you within quiet hours, tenants generally have flexibility on timing as long as normal building quiet hours are respected.
4. If you’ll miss your turn, arrange a swap with a neighbor or handle it before a warning arrives, rather than skipping it outright.
5. If a neighbor consistently skips their turn, document the missed weeks and raise it with the landlord in writing, rather than retaliating by stopping your own cleaning, which can put you in breach too.
6. If your building uses a professional cleaning service instead of a rotation, check your Nebenkosten statement, that’s how the cost is typically passed on, and it’s a legitimate operating expense under German tenancy law.

Compliance Note

This page describes general German tenancy-law principles and cultural context around stairwell cleaning duties, current as of mid-2026, not legal advice. It’s also worth restating the regional point clearly: “Kehrwoche” as a named custom, with its signage and folklore, is specific to Baden-Württemberg and Swabia, not Bavaria or Munich. What exists in Munich is the same underlying legal mechanism (a Putzplan written into a lease or Hausordnung) without that regional branding. Individual buildings, landlords, and lease terms vary considerably, so for your specific situation, check your own Mietvertrag and Hausordnung, or consult a Mieterverein or Mietrecht attorney.