Cardiff Council has been tidying up the look of the city to welcome the Cardiff Half Marathon.
Extra staff have been brought in to remove graffiti, especially in subways in the city centre.
The drawings on the wall are mostly simple doodles, writings or “tags” which are the graffiti writers’ signatures.
These are the things graffiti removers aim get rid of as soon as possible, but the process can be pricey and lengthy.
If the wall is white, the workers have to repaint it three times to fully cover the graffiti.
Five litres of the paint costs about £20, and a pair of workers can go through about 15 litres in just an hour.
But not everything on the walls has to be removed.
One of the city’s graffiti removers Alex says the TV man drawing looks pretty cool in his eyes.
“To me, that is proper art, it can stay. As graffiti removers, we get to call the shot on if sparing something we think cool to stay on the walls.”
But Alex also says most of the tags he’s come across in the subways are just vandalism, and vandalism tags have to go at once.
“The situation is getting worse. Sometimes the tags and writing will be back up even before our paint has got a chance to dry.” says Alex.
There are CCTV cameras in the subways, but another graffiti remover Emma El-faitori says they haven’t help in catching the perpetrators.
“Most of the taggers tend to work at night or early morning, and they tend to cover their face with masks or hoodies, so it’s really hard to identify them.”
Emma believes the best way to prevent this kind of vandalism lies in public education.
In Penarth, the graffiti studio Hurts So Good offers weekly sessions teaching kids about art through spray painting, and it’s free.
The man in charge of the Studio is Cesto, and he has been a professional graffiti writer for 25 years. He says he loves graffiti and wants to teach kids about what he loves most.
“If it wasn’t for graffiti, I would have spent most of my adult life in jail,” Cesto told Cardiff News Plus.
“Graffiti gives me the chance to express myself, and it gives me a family that cares about me within that culture.”
Cardiff council says it will consider making more legal spaces for the graffiti writers.
But it also says that graffiti in public space is illegal and spoils the local environment.
If caught, people could be prosecuted under the Criminal Act 1971.
it is Alex and Emma’s dearest wish that the newly painted walls in the city can stay pristine and graffiti free.