For some people it’s their garden, while for others it’s their car or motorbike.
But for Yarraville’s Gordon Morrison it was the colourful mural on his front fence that was his pride and joy.
Originally painted in support of same-sex marriage ahead of the 2017 plebiscite, the mural’s rainbow stripes were a familiar site for people passing by Mr Morrison’s home on the corner of Francis and Bena streets near the Williamstown Road intersection.
Or at least up until last Thursday morning they were.
That’s when Mr Morrison opened his front gate to find someone spraying grey paint over the mural’s bright colours.
“I was flabbergasted,” Mr Morrison said of his reaction to finding a man holding a spray gun painting over the mural in broad daylight.
“The first thing I said to him was “what the F are you doing?” and then I said “did you even think about knocking on my door and telling me I was doing this?”
According to Mr Morrison, the middle-aged man doing the spray painting responded by pleading his innocence.
“He said “don’t blame me, this is what I’ve been told to do.”
But told by whom?
Mr Morrison regrets not inquiring.
“I was too flummoxed to ask who you actually work for,” he said, adding that after going to his car to get his phone – what he’d originally gone outside for – the man was gone.
Mr Morrison didn’t catch sight of his vehicle or see any logos on his clothing, though he did notice that the man was wearing protective equipment which suggested he was a professional.
What he left behind was a fence mostly painted grey, with only half of the Francis Street facing portion of mural, including some ‘Pam the Bird’ tags added by the notorious graffiti artist, remaining.
As for the rest?
“It’s ruined,” Mr Morrison said.
In the absence of any other explanation and having seen private contractors removing graffiti for them in the past, he contacted Maribyrnong council to complain.
“Council does not remove graffiti from private property,” a spokesperson said in a statement to Star Weekly.
“We do offer graffiti removal vouchers for residential and commercial properties, however no request has been made for this property.”
Whoever is responsible, Mr Morrison suspects that removing the Pam the Bird tags might have been their motivation.
The tags were added to the mural in 2023 as a surprise for Mr Morrison, at the request of his daughter.
“The next thing we knew [the artist] produced it for us in the middle of the night” Mr Morrison said of the four Pams that were woven into the mural.
The artwork, particularly what remains of the mural, remains popular with inner-west locals.
“We went out yesterday [Thursday 30 January] to see if we could wash off the paint and someone yelled from a car ‘leave the pam birds alone’.”
For Mr Morrison and his family, it’s sadly a bit late for that.
