An Auckland mother outed her son on social media after discovering he'd been tagging. The pair sat down with 1News' Jane Nixon to explain how it unfolded.
It all started at the skate park when a friend tempted him to tag. Soon the young teenager joined friends who bussed around the city, finding spots to make their mark.
But that was before his mum found out.
Mother and son sit together at the kitchen table, he shifts uncomfortably but says he knows she did the right thing.
A scroll through her 13-year-old's phone over the weekend led to her finding multiple videos of her son tagging properties around Auckland, including the school he attends.
Getting caught wasn't in the plan but now it's dawning on him things could have spiralled if he hadn't been. Police say tagging, graffiti, or defacing property is an act of intentional damage and is a criminal offence, carrying a penalty of three months in prison.
The teen, who 1News isn't naming, says he didn't tag private property - mostly power boxes, bus stops and abandoned sites.
"At those places that people do graffiti - they're pretty famous, like well-known. They might go back and see yours and if they do it gives yourself a name," he says.
Police say status is conveyed by the more prominent the tag is and the more times it appears.
"If not removed, at the earliest opportunity, the tag will be repeated frequently over the surrounding area, and other taggers will be attracted to compete, resulting in an area being inundated with graffiti."
The teenager says he didn't know it was a crime, but knew he wasn't meant to do it, explaining it was the thrill of notoriety that pulled him into it.
"You get an adrenaline rush," he says.
"There’s lots of people who don't know it's wrong. There are some pretty scary people who tag," he says. And some who "will tag anything they see".
Auckland Council's Marcel Morgan told 1News the council deals with between 70,000 to 110,000 graffiti incidents per year and it's getting worse.
"As you can imagine, the cost for this is significant. Over the past five years, the cost for eradicating graffiti has cost between $4.2-$4.4 million per year.
"This excludes graffiti which appears on the motorway network or KiwiRail, Vector, Chorus and Counties Power assets, as they are all managed by the individual agencies," Morgan says.
He says the increase in graffiti incidents can partially be attributed to periods of level 4 lockdown over the past two years during which only offensive graffiti could be removed as an essential service.
"This caused a build-up of graffiti which meant that our service providers were dealing with backlogs when we returned to full-service levels. The spike in graffiti incidents can also be attributed to schools being closed for prolonged periods, resulting in youngsters spending more time on the streets, and more incidents being reported to the council due to more people working from home."
Auckland Council encourages those in the community to report tagging. It manages graffiti removal and prevention in partnership with a wide range of government agencies, community groups and volunteers in local areas.
"Graffiti has a negative impact on those living in the area, creates a perception that nobody cares, attracts more graffiti vandalism and encourages other types of crime in the community."
Tagging is a tiresome taint on the community and the mother 1News spoke to wants her son to clean up his act.
So she called him out on his actions and went public. She posted on her community Facebook page, telling people to get in touch if council property had been tagged with her son's signature.
"My son is the artist and he will be going round cleaning every single one off," she wrote.
She said her son would formally apologise for any tagging of property.
"I wanted him to have consequences for his actions," she says.
Locals were quick to applaud her parenting - some calling her "brave" – boosting what she calls her "mum ego".
She says she's had a few phone calls and messages from supportive friends and felt overwhelming support from the community's response.
"They know my kids and they know these are not our values," she says.
She took her son out of school for the day. He's going back this week to clean up graffiti on the school's property. Then away to a family member next week to "take stock" and get himself ready for next term.
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"We've cleaned up quite a few [sites] today, going round all the spots he can remember," she says.
He says he's embarrassed but feels he's now "doing what’s right".
And his attitude has impressed the school he belongs to.
"Your teacher is definitely very proud of you," his mum tells her son.
"I didn’t expect it, it came out of nowhere," he said of his mother revealing his misdeeds to the community.
But the wake-up call was welcome.
"People will respect you way more if you are good," she tells him. He says he'll try and change the subject next time a friend tempts him to tag.
"Not going past the boundaries that have been set."
"You can always use me as an excuse," mum says. "I do, I do that," he laughs.
"You don’t want to be guilty by association," she tells him.
"No one can really tease me for doing something right," he says. "And if they do, they’re not good friends," his mum adds.
The teen also plans to cut down his social media hours after realising his screen time was too high – another pointless distraction, he says.
It's been a rough year for the single mum of four. One of her 10-year-old twins was diagnosed with a brain tumour last year during level 4 lockdown.
Three surgeries later, he's recovered, albeit after multiple rounds of radiation therapy and specialist appointments.
"I lost half my hair," she said of the stress. Her teen struggled through it too.
"It was pretty sad. We went from us being in the same room every day to me not seeing him at all," he said.
The lockdown meant no visitors were allowed.
"We were just locked in the hospital, it was really hard," she says.
Amid it all, mum and her teen son are tight.
"I try and keep the communication open – always, and I try and be a non-judgemental safe space for him."
The two volunteer at charity, Everybody Eats in Onehunga each Wednesday night. It's a pay-what-you-feel restaurant that helps those who can't afford meals.
Mum says it will be good for his CV and good for his ambition to study graphic design - a future far from tagging.
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