Smoked out

We start this post with a view Park Road in Five Dock, looking back at the houses that skirt Five Dock Park.  

I am showing you these houses because the residents of these houses have a view straight into the park, and I walked over to them and checked that you can see the grandstand from the ground floor.

Out the back of the grandstand is this park bench, freshly adorned with a few graffiti tags, and with abandoned pizza boxes on the ground.  I'm assuming that whoever is constantly vandalising this spot is also responsible for the rubbish left lying around this area on a Sunday morning - fast food wrappers and vodka cruiser cans are scattered here and there.  Again, this bench is visible from at least half a dozen houses.

Then we have the back of the grandstand - not so visible due to trees and bushes, but tagged over the weekend - presumably on Saturday night.

The piece de resistance is the side of the grandstand, on which I can count 22 separate tags.  Ten of these are the ubiquitous "RSOL" (or 'arsehole') who appears to be a member of the local SKB tagging crew.  Again, these all appear to have gone up on Saturday night.  This wall is clearly visible from Barnstaple Road - I regularly drive down Barnstaple, and I can see tags as I drive past.  They are certainly visible from a number of houses.

This bit of artwork might explain what the vandals are getting up to - "smoked out" implies they've all been on the bong either before, during or after their little rampage.  It wouldn't surprise me to learn that they need a bit of artificial courage before slinking around to throw up some tags in the dead of night.   

As usual, this has been reported via the council web reporting system.  I expect the graffiti truck to have removed all this within a day or two.  And so another week begins.

I do wonder though what the local residents make of all this.  Do they hear parties here late at night on Saturdays, complete with smashing bottles and the sound of breaking furniture, and just ignore it?  Do they see the rubbish and the graffiti and the broken glass the morning after, and wonder what to do?  Or is it all just too hard to deal with, and better left to somebody else to worry about and clean up?