ANN ARBOR, Mich. – It's an unwanted sight in downtown Ann Arbor – graffiti showing up in all the wrong places.
Property owner Rob Cleveland owns a building on Felch Street, which is home to four businesses. All of them have been tagged with graffiti and he's been responsible for removing it.
"It was $3,000 to do the entire building," Cleveland said.
Back in November, the city began issuing citations to owners whose buildings were vandalized. But as soon as the street art came down, it went right back up.
"So, $3,000 and 72 hours later, everything that you see here was back up again," Cleveland said.
The Downtown Development Authority has tried to help building owners with what is call the Graffiti Grant, it allows owners to pick up cleaning supplies at local hardware stores for free.
Building owners like Cleveland understand it's the law, they just want more help from police to catch the costly vandals.
"The police have come over, filed a report and then it falls into a black hole and nothing happens," Cleveland said. "What that says to the people who are doing this is that you can kind of work with impunity, there's really going to be no repercussions."
Cleveland and the other building owners think the graffiti vandals are the same group of teenagers moving from business to business during the evening because the same two letters keep appearing: "S" and "C."