In the hot, sticky summers of many of America’s cities, the smell of urine can be all too familiar.
San Francisco is peeing back at public urinators by painting its walls with UV-coated, urine-repellent paint, local TV station KPIX reports. The paint is so hydrophobic that it keeps the wall clean and sprays urine right back at offenders.
“We are piloting it to see if we can discourage people from peeing at many of our hot spots,” Public Works Director Mohammed Nuru told SFGate. “Nobody wants to smell urine. We are trying different things to try to make San Francisco smell nice and look beautiful.”
San Fran — which CNN reports has a bad whiz kid problem — got the idea from Germany, whose hard-partying city of Hamburg can “smell like a sewer” each morning, said Julia Staron, who organized the city’s paint campaign.
San Francisco Public Works has received 375 requests to steam-clean pee-soaked walls since January, CNN reports. Public urination has been punishable by a $ 50 to $ 100 fine there since 2002, but the fine has done little to curb the problem.
Walls that pee back just might.
Crews have already painted 10 walls in San Francisco and Public Works intends to expand the program, according to KPIX.
Your move, New York!
