Graffiti vandals are costing Far North District Council $150,000 a year and it is now pleading with parents to watch their children.
The council said most of the clean-up cost went on removing graffiti from community assets including halls, toilets, sports complexes, playgrounds and other amenities.
The councilalso spent $30,000, removing graffiti from pump stations, storage depots and road signs.
Community services operations manager Sue Hodge said they were appealing to people to keep an eye out for the vandals and help the council catch them in the act.
Ms Hodge said parents needed to question their children "when they came home with aerosol paint cans or with paint all over them, and shopkeepers needed to think twice about selling aerosol paint to school-age children".
She said the vandals had taken on a new lease of life recently and graffiti busting had become an increasingly busy and thankless task.
"We are spending a lot of time and money removing mindless scribblings by people who get a buzz out of scrawling all over public property until their community assets start looking like abandoned bomb shelters," she said.
Anyone who saw vandals at work should take a photo and send it to the police, she added.
She said the council had adopted a zero tolerance to graffiti.
Graffiti would be removed within 48 hours; family group conferences would be held to get financial compensation from offenders; the council would work with other agencies, such as Transit NZ and the police to identify hot spots; graffiti prevention would be promoted through environmental design; people would be told about the importance of quick graffiti removal; and communities would be assisted with funds to fight graffiti.
