Graffiti and property vandalism

Graffiti vandalism is a crime. It is the act of marking or defacing premises or other property without permission. Check out graffiti facts and figures on the NSW Government website.

Council, businesses and private property owners spend time and money removing graffiti vandalism. Estimating the true cost of graffiti vandalism is difficult because many people do not report it.

Graffiti vandalism and its removal involve chemicals that can be harmful to the environment. These same chemicals can affect the physical wellbeing of perpetrators of graffiti vandalism.

Rapid and continual removal of graffiti vandalism is the best way for property owners to protect their property and preserve the image of their neighbourhood.

Removing graffiti within 24 to 48 hours makes removal easier and more effective and reduces the notoriety of graffiti vandals.

Reporting graffiti

Council will remove offensive graffiti immediately from Council owned and managed assets. Non-offensive graffiti on Council owned and managed assets is removed as part of our scheduled maintenance program.

Graffiti on private property or non-Council owned assets

Council does not remove graffiti from private property or non-Council owned and managed assets, such as power poles.

In these cases, report the graffiti damage to the relevant authority:

• Essential Energy e.g. power boxes, power poles:
  Report Vandalism or Graffiti (essentialenergy.com.au) or call 13 23 91
• Telstra e.g. boxes / equipment:
  Report damages to Telstra equipment - Telstra or call 13 22 03 
• Transport NSW, e.g. M1 signs:
  Contact Transport for NSW | NSW Government or call 1800 707 125
• NBN e.g. internet nodes / equipment:
  Contact us form | nbn (nbnco.com.au) or call 1800 687 626

If your property is subject to graffiti vandalism you should report the matter to the local police on 131 444. 

How we manage graffiti

Our graffiti management includes:

• zero tolerance of graffiti (Roads and Maritime Services are requested to do the same)
• necessary advertising with a direct council contact to pursue this major problem
• investigating ways to provide facilities for graffiti artists in future budgets.