Government's aim is all wrong in this in 2 ways - Granite Grok

Government’s aim is all wrong in this in 2 ways

Ultra Ever DryI ready this and being the engineer that I am, I instantly thought of a number of ways in which to render this “fix” irrelevant and avoid it completely, but here is the sad story:

San Francisco’s #1 problem might be solved with pee-resistant paint

San Francisco is testing the idea of painting walls with urine-repellant paint that will soak the sprayer before the wall gets wet.  Mohammed Nuru, San Francisco’s director of public works, got the idea to use the paint, Ultra-Ever Dry, after reading about its effectiveness in Hamburg, Germany. The paint repels most liquids so the urine would “bounce back” on the sprayer.

“The urine will bounce back on the guy’s pants and shoes,” Rachel Gordon, a public works department spokeswoman, said. “The idea is they will think twice next time about urinating in public.”  After painting nine walls around areas with prominent nightlife or homeless communities, the city has received requests many other requests for the paint. In fact, it costs less money to paint the wall than to clean it, Gordon said, according to The Guardian.

“We’ve gotten many, many calls from people who wanted it done in their alley or on their buildings,” Gordon said. “Some people are saying it’s just a gimmick, but other people hope it will combat some of the smelly areas of San Francisco that have been saturated with urine.”

The nine areas were marked with signs reading “Hold it! … seek relief in an appropriate place,” in English, Chinese and Spanish. Gordon said the city has also increased the number of public toilets, The Guardian reported. The paint is sold by Ultratech International Inc. and is a superhydrophobic coating, The Guardian reported.

So, #1, don’t aim at the wall.  Use a different angle than at 90 degrees (the lesser the better) or aim at where the wall meets the cement / asphalt (still not head onto the wall but at an angle away from you).  Or, just relieve yourself and not hit the wall at all.

Thus, rendering the cost of the paint purchase and application an expensive exercise in getting nothing done.

#2 – WHY should the government be paying to put this paint at the taxpayer’s expense on private property??  If the residents or owners don’t like what is happening, let them buy and apply their own dang paint, right?  Why turn this into yet another example of the Socialist’s worst problem – the problems of the commons in that nobody “owns up” to their part of the problem but yet everyone wants someone else pay?  If you own it, and you don’t want the urine on your building, get off yer butt and take care of it yourself!

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