Community Corner
San Francisco to Public Urinators: Our Walls Pee Back
Taking cue from Europe, the City is employing pee-repellent paint on its walls in a pilot program to deter people from peeing in the street.
Don’t pee into the wind, as the saying goes, but if you’re visiting San Francisco, maybe don’t pee on the walls as well.
The city’s public works department, tired of cleaning urine-soaked walls, sidewalks and alleys, is testing out pee-repellant paint on nine city walls. The painted surface is supposed to splash urine back at the offender.
The San Francisco Public Works director Mohammed Nuru hopes this will cut down on people illegally relieving themselves in the city.
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“We are piloting it to see if we can discourage people from peeing at many of our hot spots,” Nuru told The San Francisco Chronicle. “Nobody wants to smell urine. We are trying different things to try to make San Francisco smell nice and look beautiful.”
The pee-repellant paint is not a new idea. The city of Hamburg tried it at St. Pauli quarter and it seems to work. There is even a tongue-in-cheek public awareness campaign video letting people know about the walls peeing back.
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That caught the attention of Nuru. Despite having a public urination ban on the books since 2002 with fines ranging from $50 to $500, it didn’t curb the problem. About 5 percent of the calls the agency receives are for urine steam clean.
“Anything we can do to deter people is a good thing,” Nuru told the Chronicle.
Currently, there are nine pee-repellant walls in the Tenderloin, the Mission and South of Market with more slated to be painted next month.
And it only costs the city a couple of hundred dollars for each wall, according to the Chronicle.
The paint is provided by Jacksonville, Fla.-based UltraTech International, Inc. It works by creating texture on treated surfaces with geometric shapes that peaks and valleys. These “peaks” are what repel water, according to the company.
Will this work to deter public urinator? Nuru says let your nose be the judge. Or better yet, look to see if there is evidence.
If the pilot program works, you can bet there will more walls that pee back in the Golden City.
- --Photo courtesy of St. Pauli Peeback
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