Time to reclaim our neighborhoods from vandals
Lois Collins
It's a beautiful place, with a fountain in the front and lovely lilies and roses along the side.
When my neighbors moved in a few years ago, they put up a pristine vinyl fence along the side yard. And it is that fence and what has followed that makes me feel like weeping.
It has holes in it where someone has thrown things — perhaps rocks — at it. There are long scratches the length of it. There are ghost prints of graffiti past, lingering, despite serious elbow grease and a coat of white paint that shouldn't have to be there. At least once a month, the fence is tagged yet again, with vile words or symbols from that mysterious language Cretin.
My own house has been targeted a couple of times, in an almost half-hearted fashion, the damage limited to a sloppy spray-paint scrawl across the front of our garage door or words on the fence we kept deliberately small to provide less opportunity. My husband called the city, and an anti-gang work crew came out and cleaned it up almost instantly, bless them.
I have come to believe that the vandalism, the wanton petty acts of destruction, are every bit as criminal as if someone pulled a truck into the front yard and carted off the homeowner's expensive fountain. And it should not be tolerated.
The process of spray-painting someone else's property reminds me of a dog marking his territory. And it's just about that classy.
We're seeing more and more of it in our quiet, middle-class neighborhood.
Does it mean that gangs are declaring themselves on my street? That would be the first assumption, although there's no way to say for sure it's gang activity, short of catching the cowards in the act. Certainly there are other kids who engage in vandalism and general stupidity.
I've noticed that when swift action is taken to remove the markings or cover them, we get a lull, sometimes quite lengthy, between incidents. If it's left in place, even for a day, it spreads like mold. A spray-painted fence is joined very shortly by a tagged garage door or even words marked on the foundation of the house.
The same is true of allowing litter.
For some reason, the people who walk past my parking strip seem to be incapable of hanging onto their soda bottles or candy wrappers. They must be dropped among my bearded penstemons. If I pick the mess up immediately when I see it, it's an occasional annoyance. If I let it sit a day, it multiples unbelievably.
Recent comments
Judging by the three whole comments before me there is still a whole...
Anonymous | July 17, 2008 at 10:00 p.m.
Based on the print edition I received this morning, it looks like...
spelling isn't that hard | July 17, 2008 at 4:41 p.m.
Lois:
Good column. I agree. This vandalism should be severely...
Reason | July 17, 2008 at 4:40 p.m.
