On a broiling Saturday morning, 10 or so Realtors are throwing on bright yellow “Protect Property Values” T-shirts in the parking lot of the Hollywood Recreation Community Services Center. They’re here to take back the neighborhoods (and, admittedly, their commissions) from graffiti. Led by Realtor Kevin Child, and joined by county commissioners Chris Giunchigliani and Lawrence Weekly, they join about 40 more people—kids, retirees, neighbors.
Graffiti is a pockmark on a community, and Child puts it best when he says, “We don’t just sell houses. We sell communities.”
They talk about subdivisions where they paint over graffiti daily. They fantasize about graffiti stake-outs. They discuss how the unseemly markings complicate their chosen routes to showing a home—they try to choose the most attractive, unblemished streets, devising their own maze in.
On a dirt lot near Lake Mead and Walnut, there’s an offending wall about a block long, completely besmirched in swirling reds, blues and blacks. Kids from the juvenile detention center join them, here to perform community service.
And within about five minutes—no lie—the wall is a nice, even gray.
Though pleased with their results, they know the battle has just begun.
“See how great this wall looks now?” questions Child. “By tomorrow night it’ll be marked up again.”