Street spam is low budget  form of advertising in which a company, event, service, real estate development, etc overexposes  itself on telephone poles, stab signs, or by wildposting. These signs have proliferated over the years to epidemic proportions and become a nuisance in many communities. Everywhere you look there are signs, often dozens at a time, littering our communities. These signs are illegal in most places.

Every week, scores of signs, mostly the picket signs advertising condo developments in other areas, proliferate in Midtown as in the rest of the Metro Atlanta area. Usually 50-80 signs are rounded up and discarded every weekend just in our little Midtown alone. Snipe signs (on utility poles) are also a problem at times.

Unless they are quickly removed, the picket signs will typically plop over and warp over the course of the weekend. Sign placement companies claim that they pick them up Sunday evenings but this is often  not the case. 

• Street spam creates unsightly litter that defaces our neighborhoods.
• Many of these signs are for businesses who don't even live in the communities they are trying to profit from.
• Many of those behind the illegal signs are fly-by-night businesses who may not be paying for business licenses, income taxes, etc., that other legitimate business have to pay.
• These signs are removed usually by volunteers, or by government workers AT TAXPAYER expense.
• Off-premise signs are visually unappealing and they are distracting to drivers, and they may cause safety problems by impeding visibility.

• The laws in the City of Atlanta are very weak. While it is against ordinance to place signs on the right-of-way and on utility poles, only those actually placing these signs in improper places can be cited and fined up to $75. This is simply a cost of doing business for these sign placement people. Atlanta has no "end benefactor rule" making sponsors of this kind of litter responsible. 
• Many naive or unscrupulous agents for housing developments and businesses sponsor this litter to stimulate fast sales without regard to the litter and blight their signs produce in the community surrounding them.

How city ordinances could address this type of sponsored litter:

• City ordinances need to be re-written to specifically name "weekend directional signs" and snipe signs among prohibited types of signs (Signs on utility poles are already illegal and spelled out as prohibited signs).
• There needs to be an "end benefactor rule" incorporated into the ordinances. That would allow city officials to address the sponsors of neighborhood litter.
• Increase the fine for violations significantly to where it would be more than just a cost of doing business. 

They typically operate during the night when traffic is very light. They will advertise their services to new developments, charge them a fee for strategic placement of a certain number of signs. They will often place several signs in one location for multiple clients.

Snipe sign culprits will typically nail the signs too high for a pedestrian to reach, yet low enough to get out of there quickly. 

Strategies for taking back our neighborhoods from this sponsored litter:

Simply remove and discard. Tips on removal from utility poles here. Most of the time they are put out by unscrupulous culprits.

It helps to have an arrangement with a local business to use their dumpster (fly-dumping is usually illegal). 

Street spammers know that it is illegal but continue to do so anyhow. It is not worth your time to contact the culprits. They are like these moles that run drugs on the streets of the inner city.

Housing developments will sometimes want to maintain a good image and will sometimes respond well to concerns of the community. Try writing to sponsors of homebuilder litter.

Removing the signs cuts into their profits, as they promise their client litter-sponsors that a certain number of signs will be put out at certain times. The more citizens and code enforcers remove these, the more signs they have to keep producing to keep up. They will often give up.

• These signs are often place near signs advertising things like "we buy cheap houses", Viagra, and other low-end forms of advertising.
• This kind of overexposure suggests that you are desperate to sell something that is not moving well.
• It makes your business look bad in the community.
• There is a growing backlash nationally against this phenomenon.