Bandit signs, so addressed by the City of Houston, are lightweight, inexpensive Advertising signs usually made from paper, cardboard or corrugated plastic that are illegally placed on public property and right-of-ways and sometimes even on private property. They are the spam of the low tech world, and the unsolicited intrusive blight of most residential communities. We have learned to resent their ever ugly presence at the intersection leading into our neighborhoods. Violators are not very particular as to where they place them. The visual appearance of our neighborhoods is obviously not their concern. Location is what matters to them. So we shouldn’t be surprised to see them in front of churches, schools, parks and the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, and on every freeway and throughway in the city.

These signs are a relatively new form of cheap advertising (more bang for their buck) that has exploded and proliferated in every urban community, and gone rampant. Ordinance 4608c of the City of Houston Sign Administration enforces these violations, but like so many other city agencies they are shorthanded and not adequately equipped. For this reason our association, like so many other social and civic groups, has decided to work hand-in-hand with the City of Houston. We regularly remove illegal signs and report chronic or persistent violators within the perimeter of our community. The city will in turn pick up the materials and information and also dispatch inspectors for on-site documentation and legal processing.

Please help us in our quest to keep Clear Lake City neat and clutter free. Express your feelings about this kind of marketing imposition. Keep in mind that a large percentage of these advertisers operate incognito, that is, no physical address available, while many others are faceless with unlisted phone numbers. Therefore a word to the wise “buyer beware”. Our most significant individual contribution to the eradication of this kind of marketing is really very simple: Do not buy their products, or engage their services. This may be the single most effective way to stop or at least significantly reduce this pervasive trend.