Sydney Buses - followup

I got a comment the other day that said that bus stops like this are the responsibility of the local Council, not the bus companies.  Well, I don't really care who takes care of it, and someone has - this had graffiti smack bang in the middle of it two weeks ago.

I haven't had a formal response from Sydney Buses yet, but it's only been two weeks, and I am a patient fellow.

My concern is not who owns the bus stops and signs and streetside furniture.  My concern is that Sydney Buses seems to have a very relaxed attitude to keeping an eye on the state and condition of bus stops, and reporting it to whomever is responsible for fixing them.  

As an occasional bus commuter, I don't give two hoots about who owns the seat at the bus stop that I travel from.  Sydney Buses can shout as loudly as they like that it is not their problem, but the seat has their name on it, and it's at a spot where buses stop, so in my mind, it is associated with them.  Furthermore, because of that association, it reflects badly on my perception of their service and competence.  When I see a seat at a bus stop that is so badly trashed that I don't want to risk sitting on it, I have to wonder about the state of the bus that I'll be traveling on, the level of care that the driver will show and even the punctuality and reliability of the service.

If Sydney Buses care about their image, then they'll care about ensuring that bus stops are in good condition, even if it is not their responsibility to take care of them.

Cleaned with a bit too much vim and vigour

These three photos show a Sydney Water cabinet that was cleaned up about a month ago.  There's just one problem - whoever did the cleaning has scrubbed off all the identifying information on this cabinet.  If you look really, really carefully at the signage in this photo, you can just make out that it belongs to Sydney Water.

From Sydney Water

Asset registers

I received a wonderfully snarky comment last week to a post where I mentioned "spoon feeding" customer service reps at Energy Australia.

It's not spoon feeding moron! Their website asks for the address details. You've read it haven't you?

Ever thought the additional information is asked incase someone gives the wrong asset number. Having a asset register is all good, but not much help when the wrong number is provided. The address provides a means of checking the asset number provided matches the physical location. 

When I said that I would have to spoon feed the customer service people, I wasn't trying to put them down.  Rather, my comment was directed at their management, because those reps are operating without having information at their fingertips that could make their life a lot easier.

I ran a help desk, or service desk (call it what you like - "call centre" if you have to) for a few years, so I know what it is like to be on the end of a telephone, taking a call from someone that might be angry, disgruntled, hard to understand or just plain nuts.  Yes, I took calls myself, usually taking the first calls of the day at 7am for up to an hour or so, and dipping in again during the day if my team was being overwhelmed with calls.  

The whole idea of a call centre or help desk is for it to be a conduit for information to flow into the organisation from the outside.  The trick to keeping call times down (and thus costs down) is to gather the required information in the shortest time possible.  You work out what information you need to process a particular task, then work out ways to get that information from the caller and into your computer system as quickly as possible.

I put CTI into our help desk system as quickly as I could.  Energy Australia have done that as well - for many types of calls or web queries, you start by entering your customer number.  Since that customer number is linked to lots of useful information that they have about the caller (such as your name and address and billing history), it saves time.  The agent answering the phone does not even have to commence the call by saying, "Can I start with your name please?", and then go through the sometimes laborious process of having it spelt out over a crackling phone line.  

The system I put in was an internal one, so we set it up based on employee number - when you called our help desk, the first thing it asked you for was your employee number, and when the agent answered the call, a screen had already popped up in front of them with basic information from the HR system - like their name and location.

Because we were doing IT support, we also added a feature where another system was queried (based on the callers employee number) and it told the agent what computer they were sitting in front of.  This greatly cut call times, since the agent didn't have to ask the user to find their computer name or IP address - something that could take minutes in some cases.  

In short, we did our best to put as much information in front of the call centre operators so that all the "grunt work" of call taking was eliminated.  They could then concentrate on dealing with whatever issue the caller was calling about.  It also makes it as painless as possible for the person making the call, as they don't have to go through the rigmarole of identifying themselves and their location and the computer they are using etc etc.

I also tried to integrate another system into the mix so that if necessary, the agent could call up a floor plan and see exactly what desk the caller was sitting at.  This was really useful information if a technician had to be sent out to deal with a hardware problem - we had thousands of desks in dozens of buildings, and it sped things up a lot if the technician didn't have to spend 10 minutes trying to find the caller.  The software to do that wasn't quite up to scratch, so we had to drop that function, but again the idea was to surround the person taking the call with as much information as possible - and to present it to the agent without them having to open up this program or that program to search for it.  The system used one key bit of data - the employee number - and then did a whole bunch of queries on a number of systems and just plopped lots of useful stuff in front of the agent.  It also plopped that information in front of the agent before they even answered the call.

Now I also worked with a team that implemented a fairly large GIS system (based on Smallworld), and that team included engineers from various disciplines who wanted the GIS to be a portal to all sorts of information about the assets they were managing.

For instance, if you went into the GIS and clicked on a bridge, the GIS would give you the exact location of that bridge.  We had overhead imagery, so you could see what it looked like from above.  The GIS was connected to the asset management and maintenance management modules of our ERP system, so by clicking on various links, it could provide you with information about what the bridge cost to build, all the maintenance orders that had been raised on it for the last 10 years, inspection reports and so on.  It was also linked into a document management system, so you could pull up plans and diagrams and drawings of the bridge, and any reports or memos written about it.  

The reason I have been trying to geocode photos of vandalised assets is that at one point, we were trying to put together a system where engineers could easily upload photos that they had taken of assets and link them into the GIS.  We never got that far, but it's interesting that five years later, the functionality we were trying to achieve is now available via Picasa.  The idea was that you could click on the bridge, and then pull up photos taken from various angles, plus photos showing the bridge over time.  This idea was based on a GIS that Defence had put together for northern Australia.  The Army had a slightly different perspective - when you clicked on a bridge, it might tell you whether it was strong enough to support tanks, or where to place explosive charges if you needed to blow up the bridge.

Everything in our GIS was driven by asset numbers, as every asset that the company managed had a unique asset number.  If someone told you they wanted to check on bridge XB741, you'd type that into the asset query window, and it would return everything you ever wanted to know about that bridge, and more.  

I'm used to working in a world of asset numbers, which is why I thought Energy Australia would be the same.  I understand that they use the same ERP system as the company I worked at, and also had all their assets mapped in a Smallworld GIS.  Given that Smallworld came out with a web interface a few years ago, I wouldn't have thought it was too difficult for the customer service reps to be given a 10 minute demo in how to use it.  Our technicians used it from time to time to find sites that weren't listed on a road map.

So if you ever take 5 minutes to browse through all the photos that I have taken of RTA and Energy Australia assets, you'll see that wherever possible, I have included a shot of the asset tag.  With substations, the tag is only applied to one surface, so if I have taken front and back shots, only one will show the tag.

From my perspective, given the work that I've done with ERP and GIS systems, I assume that the asset tag is the best way to describe an asset.  You use the tag to retrieve the street address, or a latitude and longitude if the asset is not located near a public road (I also worked with a lot of assets that were way off the beaten track - a street address was useless when the instructions on reaching it were "drive west from Bathurst, and 2 kilometres past the 50km marker, turn right onto a gravel track at the large rock.")

But if Energy Australia don't want to do it that way, that's fine.  I'll take the extra time to record the street address of every vandalised substation.  I figure that I am doing them a favour by giving them information on their assets, so they should make it as easy as possible for me to do so, but if that's too hard, I am prepared to put in a bit more effort.  It just means that I have to photograph the damage, then record a video (for my own use) describing the location, such as the street number, street name and cross street (if applicable).  

Given that I have uploaded the photos of the vandalised assets, and taken the trouble to include the asset tag of each in the photos, I would have thought that would be sufficient validation for an Energy Australia employee to work out the address of the asset.  

I'm going to stop here before this post gets any longer.

You sometimes have to wonder about the point of it all

I've given the Energy Australia online reporting system a few tries in the last week as a test to see whether I could get a few substations cleaned up.  For each report, I included the substation asset number and a link to the blog entry with some photos and a map showing the location of the substation.

I got two emails like this today:

-------------------------------------

Thank you for your enquiry.

I could not access your link. In order to process your request, please advise the location (street address including suburb) of the substation.

Should you require any further information or assistance, please do not hesitate to call us on 13 15 35 or to contact us via  return e-mail (please reply with history).

Yours sincerely,

abcd
Customer Service Representative
EnergyAustralia

 ------------------------------------------------ Summary of your request  ------------------------------------------------

DATE: 22/08/2008 09:46:10

COMMENTS: Substation 3374 has graffiti all over it.  Please arrange to get it cleaned up.

Photos and details at this link:

http://tinyurl.com/62j9sm

----------------------------------

I've been in the same boat as this customer service rep, where the IT department has decided to block access to certain sites for reasons that are clear to no one in particular, so I can sympathise.

However, what I find slightly incredible is that the customer service department of Energy Australia has no access to the asset register listing where all its substations are.  Having worked with Asset Registers before on ERP systems, I know that where possible, every major asset has some sort of address field associated with it.  One mob I worked with gave a few staff a GPS unit (back when they were expensive and rare) and sent them off to visit every location where they had equipment so that every item that they owned was geocoded to within 10 metres.

I'm sure Energy Australia have done the same.  I worked with a bloke once that told me about a system that one of the electricity distributors in NSW has where you can do a virtual flyby down all their transmission lines - I think they shot a lot of footage from helicopters when they were cleaning the high voltage towers (which they do with high pressure hoses from helicopters - you've got to keep the dust down or they catch fire).

Well, at least I now know that the customer service reps at Energy Australia are faced with some limitations and restrictions, so I can tailor my approach accordingly.  I'll just have to spoon feed them the old fashioned way.

Imagine phoning McDonalds to tell them that there was a problem at their store in George St, and they responded with, "I don't know where that store is - and I have no way of finding out - can you please be more precise?"

I am not alone

I had a look at my sitemeter stats today and noticed that one referral was from a blog called Graffiti Crime Fighters.  

So there are two of us.  I think.

All we need are a few hundred more, and we might be getting somewhere.  

But Guido is much funnier than I.

Rusted sewerage ventilation pipe

There are pipes like this all over Sydney, but usually of smaller diameter.  From the smell, I have always assumed that they are some sort of vent pipe for the sewerage system.  Normally they don't smell, as the air is vented far enough above the ground for it not to affect those at ground level, but this one is venting at ground level because it has huge, rusted holes in it near the base.  This is in Five Dock Park, Five Dock.

From Sydney Water

I am going to assume that it belongs to Sydney Water, because I can't think of which other agency might be responsible for it.  When I took these photos, there was a slight breeze, but the pipe was still rocking back and forth quite alarmingly.  

Substation 2079

86 Wrights Rd, Drummoyne.

From Energy Austra...

Abandoned car - MZN 262

You find abandoned cars in the damnest places. This is outside 9A Drummoyne Ave, Drummoyne.  You can't buy a house in that street for under 7 figures.  It's not really the sort of place where you expect to find abandoned junkers.  Rego expired 17 Aug 2008.

Substation 4670

Penrose St, Lane Cove.

From Energy Austra...

It looks clean from the street.  Just goes to show that you have to walk right around these things to check all 4 sides.  Driving past and having a look is not sufficient.

A hopeful sign

There is nothing wrong with this sign.  It has not been vandalised or defaced in any way.

I took this photo because of the caption on the bottom section:

"Cared for by Bushcare volunteers".

Three important words stand out there - cared for and volunteers.

People give their own time to take care of this area.  They aren't paid to keep this area tidy and the bushwalk in good condition.  They don't have a boss standing over them telling them to clear scrub and weeds and repair the paths.  They have to provide their own equipment and they come to this spot and contribute to making this a better place of their own accord.

If some people are willing to contribute their own time, sweat, money and effort into improving our quality of life, why is it that some organisations find it so hard to do the same when they are paying their employees to do a job, providing them with cars, computers, mobile phones, digital cameras and the like, and supplying them with training and checklists and management oversight?

Why is it that some people, who are paid so much, care so little?

Letter box, Burns Bay Rd

From Australia Post

Substation 3047

Next to 308 Victoria Place, Drummoyne.

From Energy Austra...

Russell Park - followup

I reported graffiti in Russell Park in Drummoyne to Council around 8 August.  Here's what it looked like then:

From Russell Park

The same location now - all clean.

All you have to do is report it, and then it gets cleaned.  Just like magic!

Substation 1212

In Edenholme St, Abbotsford.

From Energy Austra...

Another vandalised letterbox outside another post office

Here we have yet another vandalised letterbox outside another post office.  That's three that I have spotted in the last few weeks.

I am still at a loss as to how the staff working in this post office could fail to see the graffiti on the letterbox right outside their front door.  Letterboxes are painted in a nice, glossy red paint that seems to be fairly easy to clean.  Is it really that hard to keep something like a bottle of metho and a rag in the back of the post office and to walk outside and clean the letterbox when it gets hit?

From Australia Post

If this was a McDonalds, how long do you think the manager would allow graffiti to remain out the front of the store?  I bet it would be the first job for the day - someone would be sent out the front to protect and restore the image of the restaurant.  Why can't Australia Post develop the same sort of ethic?

Not my car

This car, which is slated to be towed away, is nothing to do with me.  The police have obviously attended and removed the number plates, and the orange sticker is from a Council ranger stating that the car is going to be removed.

From Abandoned car...

Nice to see that someone else wants to get abandoned junkers off our streets.  I like working on old cars, and have owned a few that were built in the early 1970's.  However, if they aren't running, the place to store them is in a garage, not on the street.

Australia Post - too busy to report graffiti?

This postie is presumably waiting for a truck to turn up from the mail sorting depot with some bags of mail for him to deliver.  You can't blame him for sitting back and relaxing while he waits for someone else to do their job and get the mail to him.

I suppose this happens from time to time - things get a bit hectic, trucks break down, traffic problems, people calling in sick - all the problems that plague all business operations.  However, next time Australia Post tries to tell me that their posties are too busy to report graffiti, I'll remember this photo.

Abandoned car QJM 963

Spotted this outside 30 Llewellyn St, Rhodes.  It's got a serious buildup of leaf litter underneath it and no registration sticker.  I've been going past here occasionally for a few months, and it hasn't moved an inch.

Sydney Water vs Canada Bay Council

The brick building on the right is a toilet block, owned by Canada Bay Council.  The graffiti covered structure on the left belongs to Sydney Water.

On my first visit to this site around 17 July, the toilet block was clean (on the outside at least) and the Sydney Water building had about half the graffiti on it that it has now.

From Sydney Water

I reported this to Sydney Water via their online system, and when I checked about a month later, I found that the job had been closed, but the original graffiti had not been removed. Indeed, more graffiti had been applied in the interim.

When I went past a few weeks back, the graffiti had spread to the toilets, so I reported it once again to Sydney Water, and the toilets to the Council.

I went past yet again yesterday, and the toilets had been cleaned of all graffiti.  However, the Sydney Water building was as bad as ever.

Sydney Water is a state owned corporation (SOC), meaning that it is supposed to operate with the speed, efficiency and effectiveness of a private sector company.  

Canada Bay Council is in the much-maligned, supposedly slow moving and useless local government sector.

You wouldn't believe it looking at these photos though, would you.

It is possible that by the time Sydney Water get around to cleaning their building, the untreated graffiti on it will have attracted vandals back to this spot, and they will hit the Council toilets again.  If that happens, in my opinion, Sydney Water should pay to have the toilets cleaned and offer an apology to Council for the sluggishness of their actions, and their lack of civic mindedness.  The bloke that really deserves an apology is the Council worker that has to remove the graffiti - Sydney Water are not making his job any easier or more rewarding.

(In case anyone from Sydney Water is reading this and doesn't get my analogy, think in terms of sewerage.  Flies are attracted to poo.  If you leave poo lying around out in the open, flies will keep coming back to it.  Graffiti is like poo, and vandals are like flies.  Remove the graffiti and the vandals will return less often).

Substation 5836

From Energy Austra...

How long does it take Telstra to clean a phone box?

I spotted this vandalised phone box back in July.  I went through the rigmarole of reporting it to Telstra, and was given reference number 128869378 and told that it would be cleaned within 48 hours.

From Telstra

Here it is again on 26 August - 6 weeks later.  Looks like someone has blown their 48 hour service level agreement on getting it cleaned.

Just for interest, this is how this phone box looked when the Google Earth street view people went past and took a photo.  I have no idea when they took it, but I presume it was prior to me going past in July.

Now consider this - people pay for phone calls in these phone boxes by inserting coins into a pay phone.  Over time, the coin box on the phone fills up, and someone (usually a contractor) turns up to empty the coin box.  I have no idea how often that happens, but let's say it's at least once a fortnight.

This is all part of my usual gripe that assets like this are serviced or visited on a regular basis, but the people doing the visiting never seem to notice the graffiti; if they do, they don't seem to be bothering to report it.

These same people probably knock off work at the end of the day, go home and when they get to their own suburb, drive around going, "Look at all this horrible graffiti all over the place".  Somehow, there is a major disconnect in their brains between their duty to report graffiti and their frustration and annoyance as a private citizen.

Australia Post - taking notice?

This photo shows the following things:

• A post office
• A red mailbox
• A green mail delivery box
• A postman loading up his saddlebags from the green mail delivery box

From Australia Post

Notice something about the green box?

Yes, it has graffiti on it.

I can understand Australia Post having a graffiti problem.  They have an awful lot of letterboxes and post offices.

However, what I can't understand is how any graffiti on an Australia Post asset can go unreported for more than 24 hours.  At least one person must work in the post office in this picture 5 days a week, and they would walk straight past these two boxes out the front.  A postal contractor visits the red mailbox once a day to collect the mail and transfer it to a sorting centre.  A postie (like the one on the scooter) visits several times to collect mail from the green box for delivery to local homes and businesses.  A van from the sorting centre would also visit once a day to deposit saddlebags into the green box for collection and onward delivery by the posties.

With all those employees visiting sites like this, how can they all fail to notice any graffiti and report it?  That's what I would like to know.  Because if they are all blind, I will start addressing my envelopes using braille.  

Catholics have more influence than me

Back on August 12, I contacted St Ambrose Primary School and asked them to "adopt" this substation out the front.  They contacted Energy Australia, and lo and behold, when I went past again today, it was as clean as driven snow.

From Energy Austra...

Not a bad result if you ask me.  One substation adopted, only about 60 more to go.  It's good to see that St Ambrose have decided to make this their problem.  It shouldn't have to be that way, but at least they now know that if they don't do something about it, nobody will.  It is no longer somebody else's problem.

Fence sanding - before and after

Two photos of the same site (from slightly different spots) showing the lengths that some property owners have to go to in order to get graffiti off their fences.  An unpainted paling fence must be very difficult to clean, because I've seen a few around the place that appear to have been sanded back so that they look like new.

Before.  

From Fence treatment

After.

Basketball NSW - followup

I first went past this site around 12 July.  I contacted Basketball NSW via email, and got a response saying that they would have a look at it.

Well, a month has gone past, and nothing has changed.  

From Basketball NSW

Just as a check, I looked up Basketball NSW in the whitepages to ensure that they haven't moved somewhere else.  Sure enough, the address comes back as this building.

117 -119 Queen St
Strathfield NSW 2135

Either they have a lousy landlord, or they don't care much for their image.

Differing effects from two wall treatments

This is Queen St in Concord, just down from where the Western Motorway crosses Queen St.  This area is a horrid mess for graffiti, and it appears there has never been a cleanup along this street in particular.

The red arrow on the left is pointing at a plain brick wall that is covered in graffiti for a good 100 metres.

The yellow arrow on the right is pointing at a retaining wall that is covered in creepers.  There is not a single spot of graffiti on the right.

From Queen St, Con...

Just shows how design can prevent vandalism.

Cleaning that is none of my doing

The two photos in the album below might not look like a glaring success, but as far as I am concerned, they are.  Instead of highlighting graffiti, I have decided in this photo to highlight where the Council or RTA has painted over graffiti on these concrete traffic barriers.  Graffiti appears here regularly (this area is a real hot spot for graffiti), but at least whoever owns these barriers is noticing the graffiti and painting over it.  Just the fact that they are noticing it and painting over it is a big win as far as I am concerned.   

From Crane St, Con...

It is not being ignored and treated as somebody else's problem.

Barnwell Park golf club - followup

Back around 9 July, I made a few phone calls to see if I could get the graffiti on the equipment cabinet (in the red box below) cleaned off.  As I noted back then, I was given a bit of a run around, and had little confidence that anything would ever be done about it.  

The thing is, the golf club building in the photo belongs to Canada Bay Council, but the equipment cabinet attached to it belongs to Telstra.  Although Council has a graffiti cleaning truck, they can't touch the cabinet, even though it is on their land and attached to their building.

Madness?  I will leave that to you to decide.

From Barnwell Park...

The gist of what I was told was that Telstra would have to take care of getting the graffiti removed.  Now I have had several dealings with Telstra to date, and none of them have been successful. 

However, I went past yesterday, and some blotchy paint had been applied over the graffiti.  I would prefer to see blotchy paint rather than graffiti, and I'd prefer to see it a month after first reporting it rather than never.  Something is better than nothing.

Quality of life

I like to think that this blog, and what I have been doing, is all about improving the quality of life of people who live, work or travel through the inner west of Sydney. Quality of life can be measured by many different factors - air quality, traffic congestion, living space, quality of schools and so on - but one that seems to get a lower priority is our built environment.

Heritage buildings get a lot of attention, because they are seen as lending a certain tone to an area. But rubbish bins, bus stops, street signage and the paving materials used in footpaths all contribute in their own way to how an area looks and feels. Designers and architects may go to a great deal of trouble to select a certain light fitting or doorway or type of granite in order to give a room, or a building or a precinct a certain character.

A lot of money is spent on improving our private spaces - renovating kitchens and bathrooms and polishing floorboards, and good designs are celebrated and advertised through various TV programs (such as renovation shows or series in historical buildings), and through the print media via many magazines, such as Home Beautiful, Vogue Living and so on.

Less thought, care and attention is given to our public spaces, which would seem odd to earlier designers such as Bradfield, who did all they could to ensure that their creations, such as the Sydney Harbour Bridge, would have a lasting visual impact on our city. The design of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, as much as its size, is what helps it to put Sydney on the world map.

I don't know much about how to design a better looking bus stop, but I do know how to make it a visual horror show. That's easy - cover it in graffiti and scratches, let the paint peel off the seats and walls, allow any lighting to fail or be smashed and not replaced, and allow the area to be covered in discarded rubbish.

Knowing that, even if I don't know how to turn a bus stop into a work of art, I at least know how to make it as minimally ugly as possible. Clean it. Paint it. Look after it. Go past every now and then and check on it and care for it.

Annoying use of an unlicenced scooter

This bloke was pretty easy to spot as he rode his noisy, unlicenced scooter down the footpath along Hawthorne Parade. Note the lack of helmet. He was zipping along at over 30km/h, and he was intrusive and unsafe enough for a number of pedestrians in the area to swear very loudly at him, telling him to get off the path.

From Scooter on fo...

He rode on, completely unconcerned about the impact of his behaviour, and ended up stopping at 20 Waratah Ave - obviously the home of a friend, because him and his mate departed shortly thereafter in a car with rego THE 484.

Who owns this?

This heavily defaced equipment cabinet is in Kingston St, Haberfield. I had a good look at it, and was unable to find any plaque or asset tag that identified which utility owns it.

From Unknown equip...

Even the safety notice had been defaced to the point where I was unable to tell who I should call to report it.



The Council might know.

Doing things that are not part of your job description

I found this story today about an ambulance crew stopping on the way back from a job to deal with a horse that was running loose on a British motorway.

That's what I call taking on a responsibility that has nothing to do with you, but improves the circumstances of others that you know nothing about. They could have driven away, treating the horse as somebody else's problem, which might have then led to a car smashing into the horse, and the driver and passengers requiring either an ambulance or a hearse as a result.

I hope the crew got a lot of satisfaction from doing something that was not in their job description, but prevented a potential catastrophe. A gold medal effort of not somebody else's problem.

Abandoned car - PNM 390

This Celica is on the corner of Mortley Ave and Minto Ave, or 8 Mortley Ave, Haberfield. The registration ran out on 21 Jan 2008. The spiderwebs growing around the tyres gave it away.

From Abandoned car...

Damaged car, Hawthorne Ave, Haberfield

This Corolla is opposite 5 Hawthorne Ave, Haberfield. The rear hatch appears to have been forced, a rear window has been smashed and the interior is a mess. I don't know whether it's been broken into at this location, or stolen and dumped here. The registration doesn't run out until December, so if the owner doesn't want to do anything about it, the Council can't tow it away.

It's a real eyesore.

From Damaged car -...

A partly cleaned mailbox

Mailbox in Haberfield that is still showing some signs of having been defaced at some point.

From Australia Post

Finally, clean gas supply cabinets

The equipment cabinets below are on Dobroyd Parade, which is the final extension of Lilyfield Rd. I wrote to the MD of AGL 3 weeks ago, and my letter appears to have produced a result.

From Gas

The challenge now is to keep them looking this way.

I am hoping that when AGL or Alinta or Jemena staff turn up to do some work, and they find any vandalism at this site (or any other), that they will take it upon themselves to report it so that they can be cleaned up again pronto.

Brett Park - again

The toilet block at Brett Park has been hit again. This was only cleaned up a week or two ago.

From Brett Park

I thought this was a one off tag until I went a bit further down Henley Marine Drive and spotted this parked truck with the same tag sprayed on the side. I guess someone was walking home and decided to spray whatever was available en route.

Drummoyne Public School - followup

I went past the school again today and the graffiti is still visible from the road. I only reported it late last week, so I'm not expecting miracles here. But I am going to keep an eye on it, since I got past here 4 days a week.

From Drummoyne Pub...

Abandoned car - AV 71 BF

I reported this abandoned car to Canada Bay Council back around 8 July - 6 weeks ago.

From Abandoned car...

I went past again today and it looks like it hasn't been visited for the laying on of the orange sticker of "off to the tip" by a ranger.

LJ Hooker, Drummoyne

I went into this LJ Hooker agency on Victoria Rd this morning and asked the agent in there how he took care of graffiti.

He asked, "Have you got a problem with your property?"

I replied, "No, I was thinking more about yours."

From Real Estate a...

We went outside and had a look at the two tags on the wall, and he told me that he had already recieved a quote from Council to remove them, had authorised the quote and was just waiting for them to do the work.

Nice to talk to an agent that cares about their property.

Edwin St mailbox

The photo below is geocoded, to make it easy to find where the mailbox is located in Drummoyne.

From Australia Post