Graffiti Cam

August 20, 2001 - Graffiti has become an eyesore in today’s urban communities, and every city around the world has become cluttered with it in some form or another. As soon as a structure is erected, it’s suddenly covered with spray paint marking the spot of one passing vandal or another. The term graffiti is actually derived from an Italian word meaning "scratched," and the concept dates as far back as ancient Egypt. Remains of graffiti have been found throughout the renaissance, in Pompeii and the Roman catacombs. Archaeologists have unearthed many casual ancient graffiti, scratched on walls by passersby. Too bad they didn’t have the XCam2 to keep an eye on things. But no matter where it comes from, graffiti is not pleasant to look at. Just ask the Edentronic’s Team in Paris, France.

"I live in a little apartment building in the suburb of Paris," one of the team members says. And for months he and other tenants had been observing what they called "a progressive deterioration of the neighborhood." It seemed that many of the neighborhood youth, who had nothing better to do with their lives, had started claiming that particular area as their own hangout. "We can hear them shouting and making noise till 2 a.m. in the morning," one tenant complained, and "Very often the day after, the street is a mess with beer bottles abandoned on the pavement."

But then, as usually happens, the kids decided that it was time to start marking their territory with cans of spray paint; and they started painting graffiti on the complex walls, favoring those that had just been painted above all else. Which included several newly painted garage doors.

So the neighbors decided to do something about it. During the joint-owner meeting, the risk of graffiti was mentioned. Many people did not want to pay for repainting, only to see some hideous 'signature’ several days later. So they "Decided to catch the graffiti perpetrators in action." They knew that the perpetrators operated early in the morning, sometime between 1 a.m. and 4 a.m., so that’s when they would be watching.

First, they put a fresh coat of paint on one of the tarnished garage doors. Then, immediately after, they installed the XCam2 in a discreet location, where they could watch the garage door. From there, they linked to a video receiver, plugged into the caretaker's VCR. The caretaker set his VCR to "long play record" when he went to bed, which would give him 8 hours of recording time. Just enough time to get a good night’s sleep, provided the noise of the vandals outside didn’t wake him up.

Then they waited. "We waited for the perpetrator to operate," one tenant said. "Finally, on the 10th night, the vandal committed his deed."

And thanks to the XCam2, the vandal was totally identifiable. His face was emblazoned on the videotape, along with his "creative writing." So the building manager put out a claim, and the local police moved in. According to the manager, the police "gave the bad boy the fright of his life."

As a result of this little sting operation, other caretakers around the area have decided to do the same, "and a complete group of graffiti perpetrators were turned into community angels."

The Edentronic’s Team also says, "This story became rapidly famous, and thanks to the XCam2, the graffiti perpetrators completely abandoned their game, at the risk of being given a paintbrush and paint to rectify their misdeeds." And as we all know, painting a house or a garage can be more trouble than it’s worth.

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