Folks,

It occurred to me that one way to shame the towns into doing something about sign spam is to paste a large adhesive-backed sheet over each sign with the "F" word in huge letters. The towns may not care about signs advertising dubious "services," but I bet 8-inch high letters saying F**K will come down right away! If I get caught doing that am I likely to get arrested?

--Ethan

You have my reply on this issue by private message.



GreatWhite-BH (GW)
No.Texas Chapter - CAUSS
signbuster@mail.com

GW

I have a friend who suggested this idea, but I think he was joking at the time. Somehow, I doubt that slapping obscenities on these signs would get the results you want. They'd get removed, but since code enforcement officials would notice that the obscenity was a sticker and not part of the original sign, they wouldn't prosecute the original sign spammers.

On the other hand, you could always change the phone number to 1-800-328-7448. It's the same phone number that I've seen on bumper stickers saying "If you don't like my driving".

In a more constructive fashion, what if CE offices were to supply sharks with an approved sticker to afix to the spams -- something like "This is an illegal sign to be remove in 3 days. Please call the City at nnn-nnnn."? The trick is to place the sticker so that it renders the spam useless while broadcasting the fact to spammers and private citizens that these signs are not to be tolerated. The other good thing is that this would even avoid the complaints that CAUSS-specific stickers received of being too self-serving.

>In a more constructive fashion, what
>if CE offices were to
>supply sharks with an approved
>sticker to afix to the
>spams -- something like "This
>is an illegal sign to
>be remove in 3 days.
>Please call the City at
>nnn-nnnn."? The trick is
>to place the sticker so
>that it renders the spam
>useless while broadcasting the fact
>to spammers and private citizens
>that these signs are not
>to be tolerated. The
>other good thing is that
>this would even avoid the
>complaints that CAUSS-specific stickers received
>of being too self-serving.

This strikes me as a brilliant idea - maybe the folks in CAUSS who are more in tune with local CEs, etc can expand on it. You may have come up with a real win-win solution.

Redstone

>Folks,
>
>It occurred to me that one way to shame the towns into doing something about sign spam is to paste a large adhesive-backed sheet over each sign with the "F" word in huge letters. The towns may not care about signs advertising dubious "services," but I bet 8-inch high letters saying F**K will come down right away!

Well, it's a novel approach, but a REALLY bad one:

1) It loses us the moral high ground. All it takes is one parent (like me) having a young child see that, and all of a sudden the sign spammers become the "good guys" by default, because it would make us look SO bad.

2) Vulgarity is always in bad taste. There's someone in Niantic who spray-paints the signs. I leave some of them up because they do have a deterrent effect. However, some of them are have "SUX" sprayed on them, and I rip these down.

3) As frustrating as it might be to deal with local officials who aren't as responsive as we'd like them to be, this approach would absolutely alienate them. They'd take the signs down, but resent you and the rest of CAUSS forever. It's basic human nature - embarass or humiliate someone by trapping them in a corner, and they'll carry a grudge forever.

>If I get caught doing that am I likely to get arrested?

I'd say it would be likely to the point of being inevitable.

Sound like you're a little fed up with trying to hold back the tide of signs, as we all get occasionally. I'll see if I can get out there to give you a little help, though my driving ability is a little limited right now.

Redstone

Coming from a Code Enforcement Officer, I advise not using the "f" on any signs. I had a situation where very vulgar words were painted on a white fence across from a junior high school. I went to the hardware store in my city and got enough white paint to remove the obscene graffiti. This was the quickest way of removing it before a football game was going to be played there that night. I know that we will very quickly respond to any obscene gestures on signs, etc. Thanks for staying the course.

As already stated in the thread, writing dirty words on the sign wouldn't be a very wise idea. But how about writing "SCAM" on the work at home signs?

So has anyone else given thought to applying a super clingy,
CE approved, warning sticker to spam?

>So has anyone else given thought
>to applying a super clingy,
>
>CE approved, warning sticker to spam?
>
I remember a suggestion like this on the CAUSS forum about two years ago. The idea was to have a sticker that said something like "reported to city on 1/1/2001" or "reported to city of Dallas, hold for evidence, 1/1/2001" perhaps including the telephone number of the city and/or www.causs.org. As far as I know, no one ever used this approach. The city suggested we simply report the sign rather than put a sticker on it. Of course, the city usually took days to remove the sign, if ever.

If the code people agreed to the stickering, I think it would be great because the public would realize the signs were illegal and that some action was being taken. I think it would be a rare, but enlightened, city deaprtment that would agree to this approach.

As others have said, the idea of putting obscenities on any sign is a very bad idea for everyone.

Newbie

Newbie (not)

The Ugly Litter Campaign (which is unassociated with CAUSS, but we love you guys) uses stickers as its primary response to street spam.

Our stickers say, in huge letters, "I AM UGLY LITTER" or "I AM ILLEGAL LITTER". Localized stickers are available with individual city or state codes listed at the bottom.

We get a tremendous amount of good feedback from these. A few complaints trickle in ("The stickers are even uglier than the signs!") but when we trace the return addresses of the emails, they almost ALWAYS match up with Herbalife websites. Go figure.

-- Simon

>The Ugly Litter Campaign (which is unassociated with CAUSS, but we love you guys) uses stickers as its primary response to street spam.
>

Good to have you aboard - I've seen your website and it's a great effort.

>Our stickers say, in huge letters, "I AM UGLY LITTER" or "I AM ILLEGAL LITTER". Localized stickers are available with individual city or state codes listed at the bottom.
>

If you need laws from specific states or localities, post them here and I (or someone else) will send them to you.

>We get a tremendous amount of good feedback from these.

That's because (as you already know) MOST people are good and sick of having trash nailed to poles in their towns.

>A few complaints trickle in ("The stickers are even uglier than the signs!") but when we trace the return addresses of the emails, they almost ALWAYS match up with Herbalife websites.

You ain't seen nothing yet. Browse around these forums, especially Colorado, Texas, and Connecticut, and you'll see some amazingly (and amusingly) persistent trolls.

>Go figure.

Oh, yes. Astounding what these people will call us after losing some signs or getting them stickered - they've called us Nazis, commies, terrorists, KKKers, freaks, and all manner of things.

As if that will stop us, or make their signs legal.

Again, good to hear from you. If you need anything for the uglylitter site, just post it here or send me a "private message" and we'll do whatever we can to help.

Redstone