Grafitti. I freakin’ HATE it. Am I missing something? What’s up with using a can of spray paint and writing some illegible initials or some sort of pictograph? It’s like a dog peeing to mark its territory.

There’s an empty house in my mom’s neighborhood that got tagged the other week. I can’t tell you how many times my parents have gone out and covered over grafitti. Or the times my dad has actually been approached by a-holes who have a problem with him cleaning the grafitti up!

At my old house, my back wall butted up against a field (that has now become a shopping center). But that wall would get hit and I’d be out there rolling gray paint over the ugliness because one thing I found was that grafitti begets more grafitti. The sooner it’s covered over, the better.

With all the foreclosures and the vacant homes…it’s just getting worse. And it’s just sad that no one seems to have any sense of pride in their neighborhood. I was no angel when I was a teenager, but my destructive tendencies ended at rolls of toilet paper. I would never have contemplated defacing others’ property with something like paint.

Phoenix actually has a Grafitti Busters program. But as you can imagine, it takes them FOREVER to get out and cover the grafitti up because they are so backlogged.

I have learned, though, to take pictures of the tagging before it gets covered up. Give the pictures to the police and sometimes they can use it as proof when they pick the perps up for other crimes. And if you see grafitti in progress, it is NOT a non-emergency call to your local police. It is a crime in progress and you should dial 9-1-1.

My anti-grafitti rant is now over. I feel better. For now.