The Balluta Residents’ Association is calling for more police patrols to put an end to the rising trend of “shabby” graffiti daubed across their town.
“The volume of graffiti in this locality has exploded this summer. We had a couple last year and now it is everywhere. This needs to stop,” spokesman Alexander Pace Gouder said.
“This has become a problem now. Even though the council is working on it and has removed a lot of the vandalism, we need to stop it from happening again.”
The association’s 200 members confirmed that at least 11 residences were sprayed with ‘tags’ in the Ta’ Ġiorni area this summer.
A tag, also known as a ‘bomb’ or a ‘throw up’, is among the most basic forms of graffiti and originates from territorial disputes of American gangland subcultures.
Many home owners said they had been forced to repaint their facades due to the high incidence of graffiti tags on their walls.
“My house was sprayed with a giant scribble and a phallic symbol.
“I painted the whole wall and a few days later I came home to another giant scribble. Why should I put up with this?” Balluta resident Peter Galea lamented.
Another resident claimed to be singled out by the vandals.
“I painted my wall and they sprayed again and again. Once I even came close to catching one of them in the act but they made a run for it.
“Why my house, and not the others?” asked the irate resident, who preferred not to be named.
A local graffiti artist who asked to remain anonymous said the majority of the graffiti belonged to foreign artists.
“I know most of the local symbols, and these aren’t any I’ve seen before.
Some of them are quite interesting and funny, but they are ruining the area
“The only ones I recognised belong to some foreign artists who spent the summer here,” the source said.
Mr Pace Gouder took Times of Malta through the quaint, cobbled side streets of residential Ta Ġiorni, pointing out the different tags, doodles and stencils painted in street corners.
“Some of them are quite interesting and funny. But the reality is that they are ruining the area.
“They make it look shabby no matter how interesting they are,” Mr Pace Gouder said, gesturing towards a large caricature sprayed on to a private home.
Local urban artist James Micallef Grimaud said that defacing private property went against the main tenets of the medium.
“There are unwritten rules for street art. We avoid private property, schools, monuments and old sites.
“Breaking these ‘rules’ will just turn people against this very expressive art form,” Mr Micallef Grimaud said, urging artists to choose their next canvas wisely.