RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) — Multiple angry e-mails came into the 8News newsroom from neighbors Monday night. They were upset about vandals tagging their homes with spray paint.
Neighbors suspect it happened Monday during the early morning hours.
From the looks of it, the vandals started on a wall at the corner of Belmont Ave. and West Franklin St., and continued to tag garages going down the alley way behind the homes there.
Jeff Wells lives in one of the homes tagged.
“It really felt like a violation, you know, that someone would just arbitrarily destroy our property,” Wells said.
Alerted by a neighbor around 9:00 a.m., Wells and Mac Pence say they were shocked and disturbed to find graffiti spray painted all over the side wall and garage doors. Having lived in their home almost seven years, they’ve never had this problem before, and hope it won’t happen again.
“We feel vulnerable that it might happen time and time again, but we feel like also, once the police are alerted, they are going to monitor things and catch who’s ever doing it,” said Pence.
The vandals also hit their neighbor’s garage next door.
The people who live in the area say the graffiti appears to say Ross or Roscoe.
Homes on the corner of Nanesmond and Grove were targeted as well.
“It makes me angry that someone would do this. It takes a lot of time to clean it up and I hope they’re caught,” said Pence.
“I think they must have too much time on their hands. I wish they would find something more constructive to do than spray painting,” said Wells.
They have since cleaned the spray paint off of their garage, but will have to repaint it and say the graffiti on their wall will be the most difficult to remove.
Graffiti on personal and public property in Richmond is a class one misdemeanor.
If you have anything like this going on in your neighborhood, let us know by emailing ireport@wric.com.
