Dudes,

I've been a silent supporter of your activities for a while--but we need to talk.

Today, I drove by one of those LOSE-50-POUNDS-IN-10-MINUTES signs that's been stuck in the ground for a couple weeks, and some bozo had stuck a big, neon-orange, C.A.U.S.S., "Please Remove Your Litter" sticker on it. Cute. The sign was in a shopping center in Monument.

If this was one of yours--shark it. Or I will, tomorrow. You've hijacked an eyesore and turned it into an even BIGGER one.

You've become part of The Problem.

I understand that you have some kind of legal fight in Evergreen that you need to fund, but, if you want to advertise, pay for it. I put about $1,500.00 a month into advertising my carpet-cleaning business. Why the hell should YOU get a free ride?

If you want to make illegitimate signs disappear, I won't lose any sleep over it. But if you've become spammers yourselves, then ##### you.

The sign I'm talking about is in the shopping center in Monument on Highway 105, between the post office and the Cork 'N Bottle Liquor store. If you don't have the nuts to pull it, then I WILL, at 9:30 tomorrow morning.

--Art

>Dudes,
>
>I've been a silent supporter of
>your activities for a while--but
>we need to talk.

Hi, Art:

Thanks for posting your comments. I'll respond to them below, but first, let me direct you to the CAUSS FAQ section. It answers a lot of questions about CAUSS.


>You've hijacked an eyesore and turned it into
>an even BIGGER one.
>
>You've become part of The Problem.

Not at all. The sticker would not be there if the sign was not there in the first place. The sticker lets the public know that these signs can indeed be removed by the public - they do not have to tolerate the eyesore. It also lets street spammers know that the signs are unacceptable.

If you want to remove the sign, please do! That's what it's all about.

The objective of CAUSS is to put ourselves out of business and return our corners to the condition they were in a few years ago before street spammers took over. Stickers are an interim tactic. Some sharks put up stickers, but stickers are not formally supported by CAUSS. But please keep in mind that we, just like you, want to permanently rid our neighborhoods of street spam.


>I understand that you have some
>kind of legal fight in
>Evergreen that you need to
>fund, but, if you want
>to advertise, pay for it.

You are mistaken. We do not have a legal fight in Evergreen or anywhere, for that matter. We do not need to raise money and do not accept financial contributions. CAUSS consists entirely of volunteer effort.


> Why the hell should YOU get a free ride?

And our point is: why should street spammers get a free ride. Our sticker would not be there if the illegitimate sign was not there. And again, it is not promoting CAUSS per se, but rather the concept of removing illegitimate signs.


>I WILL , at 9:30 tomorrow morning.

That would be fine and we appreciate it. Also, if you see any other signs in the area, would you consider pulling them, too? It will help.

Thanks,

DenverShark

DenverShark,

Thank you for your patient response.

I'm 38 years old, have lived in Colorado all my life, and have been what CAUSS calls a "sharker" for more than 20 years. I don't need counseling on this subject.

I'm an outdoorsman. When I run across an old campsite in the backwoods littered with beer cans, aluminum foil, roach clips, condoms, or whatever it is that people need to enhance their wilderness experience these days, I simply pick it up, pack it up, scatter the fire ring, and disappear. I don't NEED to nail neon-orange signs to the trees in the area afterwards to inform the world that "ART WAS HERE!!! I CLEANED UP!!! I'M A SUCH A HERO!!!! VISIT MY WEBSITE!!!!" I kinda like knowing that future backpackers will never know that I, or the dickweeds before me, were ever there.

I use that same approach in urban settings, because I know that there are a lot of people out there, like us, cleaning up, who have never heard of "CAUSS." We remove these eyesores because they piss us off. We don't need to draw attention to ourselves. We don't need neon-orange stickers. We don't need CAUSS.

Please stay out of our way.

In your post, you say, "The sticker would not be there if the sign was not there in the first place."

Huh, uh. Take responsibility for your actions. The sticker wouldn't be there if you hadn't put it there. Period. I'm gratified to hear that CAUSS doesn't "formally" sanction this kind of nonsense.

I've been harsh in this message, and I don't want you to take it the wrong way. For the most part, I support what members of CAUSS do. Hell, I do it myself.

Be ninjas. Be stealthy. Put yourselves out of business. But, please, don't EVER spam my community with neon-orange signs again.

Just a reminder--I'll be between the Monument post office and the liquor store across the way at 9:30 AM tomorrow morning and will be happy to discuss this with a CAUSS representative. I'll be be easy to spot. I'll be the one pulling your sign out of the ground.

Regards,

--Art

Art wrote:

>I'm 38 years old, have lived
>in Colorado all my life,
>and have been what CAUSS
>calls a "sharker" for more
>than 20 years. I
>don't need counseling on this
>subject.

Hi, Art:

Good to hear from a fellow sharker. I am also an outdoorsman. I also clean up litter I find outdoors.


>I use that same approach in
>urban settings, because I know
>that there are a lot
>of people out there, like
>us, cleaning up, who have
>never heard of "CAUSS."
>We remove these eyesores because
>they piss us off.

I know. There are hundreds of people in cities throughout the Front Range who remove signs and have never heard of CAUSS. That's great!


>For the most part, I support what members
>of CAUSS do. Hell, I do it myself.

Good. It's a pleasure to hear from a fellow "shark".



>Be ninjas. Be stealthy.
>Put yourselves out of business.
> But, please, don't EVER
>spam my community with neon-orange
>signs again.

Let me respond to this by saying that I've been sharking heavily for only about 3 years. I have removed signs time after time at the same locations, only to see them reappear or worse, to see a different spammer "claim" the corner. Unfortunately, aggressive stealth sharking in itself is not sufficient as a permanent solution.

Let me also ask another question - and I am not trying to be snotty about it - if you are actively removing signs by stealth, then how come the sign was there to be stickered? Was there only one sign or were there several?

Would it be possible to check the area more frequently? Would it be possible to get neighbors involved in removing signs?

Thanks,

DenverShark

Hi, DenverShark.

There's only one sign, and it's in a bad spot--in a parking lot, just after a four-way stop, just before a stop sign that leads on to the road that you have to make a righthand turn on to head into Monument's main business district, or hang a left to get to I-25.

I was only vaguely aware of the sign until somebody turned it oraaaaaange . . .

But that's okay. I'll correct the error. It'll be gone at 9:30 tomorrow morning.

But, please. I'd appreciate it if, from now on, you folks would just Y A N K signs down here.

Thanks.

--Art

Art:

Ok - most sharks read all of the forum posts.

Please do continue to remove those signs - and any signs you find on telephone poles, too!

Thanks,

DenverShark

Something does not add up here...

>I've been a silent supporter of
>your activities for a while--but
>we need to talk.
>
>Today, I drove by one of
>those LOSE-50-POUNDS-IN-10-MINUTES signs that's been
>stuck in the ground for
>a couple weeks, and some
>bozo had stuck a big,
>neon-orange, C.A.U.S.S., "Please Remove Your
>Litter" sticker on it.
>Cute. The sign was
>in a shopping center in
>Monument.

If our guest is such an avid shark of illegal signs, how could he have left it there for "a couple of weeks?"

The tone of Art's replies lead me to suspect there may be another agenda here...

Of course, I could be wrong!

JeffCoShark

Oh, Cynical One!

Nope, no hidden agenda here. Most of my irritation stems from the inconvenience of having to clean up after one of my own.

Normally, I'd just cluck my tongue, shake my head, pull over, and yank the sign, but, as I've described elsewhere in this thread, it's a chaotic shopping-center location. There are four parking lots emptying into an inadequate causeway that leads out to Third Street to the south, and another aisle leading out to Highway 105 to the east. "Controlling" all this is a four-way stop, where traffic backs up in all directions and gets a little testy at peak times. It takes a little manuevering to pull into an area where you can stop without inviting gunfire. Frankly, I haven't wanted to jump my 3/4-ton, exended-cab service van through those hoops the couple times I've been in the area since the sign appeared.

Can you see my point? From an efficiency standpoint, stickering is a bankrupt tactic. Somebody got close enough to the sign to tag it; now somebody ELSE has to clean up the mess. How many sharks does it take to screw in a light bulb?

I guess you could argue that stickering will recruit so many people that it'll reduce the work for everybody, but--come on. You have to admit--there might be a teensy weensy bit of blue sky in that argument.

Just pull the sign. Or, if you do sticker, go back in a day or two and shark it. I'd be cool with that. Just don't pass the problem on to somebody else. Especially ME. Heh, heh.

Fair enough?

Thanks.

--Art