We read your post regarding the spam in Houston and its continued proliferation.
The CAUSS members here in Dallas are acutely aware of the over run areas in
Houston, primarily in northwest and the Galleria areas. We have made attempts
to organize a "Cleansing party" to come to Houston primarily to generate some
interest in recruiting new "Sign Sharks" in the Houston area. So far we can't
seem to get everyone available in the same time frame.

We did a Public Awareness Demonstration in January and received some very
good press on all the local TV stations that night. The PAD was done at one
of the busiest intersections at the exit point from one of the more affluent
areas of Dallas, leading into a major shopping center equivalent to your
Galleria. Traffic is so heavy on Saturdays that it takes two and sometimes
three signal light changes to get through. This gave us plenty of time to
approach stopped cars and pass our handouts to the stopped cars. The press
was so good that a sister TV station in Houston contacted us requesting we do
a PAD in Houston. I'll be happy to provide you with the details of
this person should you be interested. I can assure you, it works, as
evidenced by our web site hits during the month following the PAD.

We experienced the same problems last summer here in the Dallas
MetroPlex area as you are now having in the Houston area. The whole area was
over run with sign spam to a degree it took almost daily policing in order to
bring the out of control spamming under control. However, with persistence
and team work, we did it. Several of our members had face to face
confrontations with some of the MLM "Work at Home" jokers. We developed a method of
placing license numbers from their vehicles, web site administrators/owners,
home address's and home telephone numbers and just about every kind of
personal information you can get. It wasn't long before the spammers began using "hired moles and
mules" to do their dirty work, people were calling their home phone numbers all
hours of the day and night.

The system we use now, in our opinion, is much more environmentally
correct than painting over the signs or placing "stickers" over an already
very bad "eyesore." We first used the "slicing and dicing" bit, by cutting off the bottom
half of the sign which includes the telephone numbers, there by rendering the
sign "useless." Some of the sharks were using a "Zorro" or "V" cut to
render the sign useless. We began receiving complaints from various parties
indicating we were causing more of an eyesore than the sign itself, so we
stopped and began to cut the signs on both sides, leaving about a two inch strip
on the pole. That's when the postings started to decrease in the number of
signs being replaced. After that, with a lot of dialogue with the Local
Code Enforcement agencies around, we began knocking the signs down with our "high
sticks" that one of our brother sharks perfected.

We have put so much heat on the Local CE offices that all we do now
is place a call to report signs being placed in the right of ways. We always
tell these folks, "if you don't get them today, some of the sharks will."
We have threatened to place over a thousand signs on City Hall steps or in
City Council Chambers if CE doesn't get off their butts and do their job.
We even went as far as to take a full trailer load down to the CE office to
validate our threats, that also gets their attention.

In case you're interested, I have some left over "handouts" from our
PAD that have been very effective as a cover sheet in making up file documents
and photos for our meetings with the various CE officers.
I will be more than happy to send you a "double handful" if you can
provide me with an address in which to send them. It doesn't need to be a
home address, some place such as work, parents address, girl friend's,
etc., so longs as it's deliverable by USPS.

Good luck, you're going to need it in Houston, from everything I
hear. I have a business meeting in Houston set sometime around the 15th of
April. I'll let you know when I'm coming and possibly arrange a meeting.
Anything we can do to help you recruit more sign sharks, let us know.

Just out of curiosity, how did you hear about "CAUSS"?

Best regards,

GreatWhite-BountyHunter (GWBH)
aka/ signbuster@aol.com

http://bountyhunters.inet-pc.com/

Bob J.
GreatWhite-BH (GW)
Director - No.Texas Chapter - CAUSS
signbuster@aol.com


rainbo,... you can be a "shark" in your neck of the woods... just
tear,
slice, slash, and or remove those signs.... www.causs.org citizens
against ugly street spam.... check out our forum.