What a mess: The spraycan vandals are out in force in Christchurch | Canterbury News | Local News in Canterbury

Christchurch has been savaged by its worst graffiti outbreak in years over the holidays ? and authorities seem powerless to stop it.

School buildings, fences, power poles and homes have been splattered with the offending material, which the Christchurch Star and its community newspapers early last year decided to call scribbling rather than graffiti, because of the child-like scrawl.

The eastern suburbs have been particularly badly hit, but the problem over the Christmas-New Year holiday period has been city-wide and a disappointment to the Christchurch City Council, which thought the scribbling problem was abating.

It spends around $500,000 a year cleaning up scribbling.

The Union and Canterbury rowing clubrooms at Kerrs Reach have been badly hit.

Canterbury Rowing Association regional manager John Wylie said: "It's a huge ongoing problem and it costs so much to clean up."

Wylie said the rowing association had to pay to clean most of its buildings because city council coverage only applied to parts of the premises that were on a street frontage.

They had spent around $2000 in previous years which was a burden.

"Now we can't afford to spend that kind of money," said Wylie.

It was frustrating that the vandals had targeted a worthwhile organisation like rowing, he said.

Wylie said rowing took a lot of pride in keeping its buildings at Kerrs Reach tidy and appealing to the public. That was being ruined by the scribbling eyesore.

The offenders appear to be brazen.

Some of the scribbling on the rowing club was appearing during the day ? in full view of houses along Locksley Ave. The Christ's College building has also been hit.

Guy Adams, manager of a community trust contracted by the city council to clean up scribbling in the city, said the problem always worsened during school holidays. These holidays the scribbling problem was the worst he had seen for a while.

"It's as bad as I've ever seen it," said Adams, manager of Project Employment and Enhancement Programmes.

He said the scribbling activity started to pick up in December, just after schools broke up for the summer holidays.

"We felt it was under control until then. We thought a lot of people must have given up on tagging because there wasn't much of it around ? then in December it all came back."

Adams said a patrol of three or four people usually spent a day looking for scribbling to clean up and tackled about 30 sites.

However, the increased scribbling activity these holidays meant they were spending a day and a half tackling the problem and sometimes dealing with more than 100 sites.

Adams said on January 6 the team cleaned up two streets ? New Brighton Rd and Frosts Rd ? and dealt with 40 bits of scribbling. The next day some of the scribbling they had dealt with had reappeared overnight.

Adams said no specific area was being targeted but it appeared mainly in busy areas such as bus stops and main thoroughfares.

"But there seems to be a lot of it in Parklands, and Dallington and Shirley are getting as much as Wainoni and Aranui.

"But it's not isolated to the eastern suburbs. It's all over Christchurch," he said.

New Brighton police sergeant Gary Manch said catching people scribbling was difficult because they were quick.

"If people are aware of kids hanging around fences with spray cans they have to get onto it straight away. It's no use calling the police the next day," he said.

Manch was unaware whether any people had been caught tagging during the holidays.

Mayor Garry Moore said the fight against scribbling was not a losing battle in the city.

All the community groups who were working on the problem had it under control, he said.

The offenders were kids generally with too little to do.

# What do our readers think of the spate of scribbling (graffiti) that has hit the city over the holidays?

What do you think authorities should do with those responsible . . . and what would you do if you caught someone spray painting your property or business?

Email us at guy.grant@christchurchstar.co.nz

We will only publish your first name and which part of the city you live in, to protect your identity.