Ninety per cent of Henry LeFebvre's double-garage is covered in bright orange and blue lettering. Someone spray-painted it overnight for him to find Sunday morning. They even left him a cheeky message amongst the graffiti.
"Sorry about your garage."
Similar defacement can be found up and down the alley on either side of the garage, in the area of Gillett Street and Ewert Crescent.
"It is really upsetting. Our neighbours across the way have had occasional graffiti problems for years, it is often around, but they did quite a number of places this time," said LeFebvre. "It is not malicious, and I didn't see any other kinds of damage, but now we have this mess to clean up."
Admittedly, LeFebvre does not know the meaning of the letters the vandal scrawled across his doors. They are bubble-style letters depicting "5555".
"This is higher quality than a lot of the graffiti you see. It looks like whoever did it was practicing, like for the stuff you see on rail cars," he said.
The police do not have any immediate suspects but have been to the alley to investigate.
"We have not had a growing trend, but certainly from time to time we come across vandalism of this type," said Prince George RCMP spokesman Cpl. Craig Douglass.
Part of the investigation would be studying the lettering, and looking at possible connections to the 5555 reference. One possibility is the underground film Interstella 5555, a Japanese-style animation video for music by the electronica music group Daft Punk.
The most certain way of catching graffiti vandals is for observant people to call in any information as soon as possible, said Douglass, because it is not easy to come across this activity in progress.
"It is typically done at night, or in low-lit or low-visibility areas where there is less chance of interruption," he explained. "There is basically no noise being made, so it can be difficult to apprehend suspects, so we look for the public's help to be vigilant, watch over your neighbourhoods, and report suspicious activities as soon as possible."
Anyone with information about what the numbers mean, or who did this damage is asked to call Prince George RCMP at 250-561-3300 or anonymously contact Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS or www.pgcrimestoppers.bc.ca.
