BERLIN — To Wolfgang Hofmann, the owner of a cheese store near Munich, the smell of his product was a sign of craft, taste and tradition.

But to Manuela Kragler, the woman who lived upstairs, it was an inescapable stink, rising through open windows and water pipes, wafting through the electrical outlets and permeating her home.

Fed up with the situation, she took her lament to the street, drawing up signs with squiggly lines under a nose to draw attention to the odor.

Their dispute, which simmered for more than three years, ended up before a judge after Mr. Hofmann, worried about the effect that the warning signs were having on his business, took his neighbor to court.