This is what you get when you have rent control. Landlords are going to maximize profits somehow, and if they can't increase rents, they'll decrease costs and try to find ways around the rent cap to squeeze tenants anyway. There's a gap between market price and regulated price, and that tension causes a lot of issues. Not that non-regulated pricing has no issues either, but at least it's a bit more up-front about the way in which you're getting squeezed.

Also how bad the Berlin government is and has always been. It's almost a crime how they sold almost all the public housing to private investors. The outcome of this has been slow regression of Berlin. From an interesting and pioneering artist haven to a boring and ugly catastrophe. Like, what's really left when all the interesting things are gone?