FRACKVILLE -- A handful of residents in Schuylkill County are debating whether or not to clean up graffiti on their property.
On Tuesday morning, at least six homeowners in Frackville and West Mahanoy Township discovered markings on their garages, two "S's" with a line through the letters.
Frackville police said the graffiti showed up in two different dark alleyways.
"We are investigating it to see if there's any type of gang related activity or symbol as they could call it," said Frackville Police Patrolman Anthony Kankowski.
In front of one garage, there are footprints of whoever tagged the garages and almost all the properties have these identical signs.
"There are several other garages that got this type of symbol spray painted on it in different colors," said Kankowski.
People who live in the Frackville area said they hope it's just a prank.
Leonard Mervine found the markings in the back of his West Mahanoy Township yard. "I think it's just kids, just playing around having a good time. That's their good time. To us, it ain't."
But there's another issue, winter weather is not the best time to paint anything.
It leaves the victims, including Mervine with a decision: to paint or wait?
"I'm not painting it again. Ya know, pretty soon they'll keep doing it and it will be like New York or whatever. You know what I mean? It's getting bad here," said Mevine.
Mervine plans to get some lights in the back of his yard in the meantime, but Brian Anthony of Frackville said he'll be painting over the graffiti on his garage as soon as possible.
"I'm just going to clean this up and see where it goes from here. I'm hoping that it's just a random act. A bunch of kids and that they get caught," said Anthony.
Anthony noticed the markings while he was shoveling and now he wants answers.
"It's here. I live here. What am I gonna do? Move to another area and it happens there as well?"
Frackville police plan to send pictures of the graffiti to a gang expert in Hazleton to see if there's any connection.
