Litter on a Stick

I suppose it's appropriate that it's during the Minnesota State Fair, famous for its food-on-a-stick obsession, that I've lately become obsessed myself with the snipe signs, also called bandit signs, that appear at street corners. They show up especially in the areas near the Fair, though they are throughout the city of Saint Paul at high-traffic intersections to a lesser extent.

I've taken it upon myself to remove as many as I can. It's not that easy, because it seems the posters pick spots where it's hard to stop a vehicle safely, except in the middle of the night (which is probably when they they do their work).

For the record, it's not legal to put these "snipe signs" up, even though these are publicly owned boulevards. They're visual (and plastic) pollution. And for all I know they're scams or pyramid schemes, too.

Here are three types I've captured:


I think this one is hand-lettered.


This one is definitely hand-lettered because you can still see the pencil lines.


This one is printed (and two-sided). The red underlines are probably hand-done. I have more than a half-dozen of this type of sign in my garage at this point (they're the busiest offenders in the area).

From what I can tell, the majority of signs are preprinted, as the third one is, rather than handmade like the other two, but they're always done in a way that implies they're handmade. I'm not sure what that's supposed to communicate to the caller; maybe that they're calling someone who's not too sophisticated and can be trusted?

Googling "bandit signs" and "real estate" turns up lots of people giving advice on how to use them for lead generation. Monkey see, monkey do, blah blah blah. Let's trash the environment so a few people call us. (My least favorite piece of advice on one site: "Signs stay up longer in low income and working class neighborhoods. Also you will be less likely to get a ticket.")

Anyone who calls any of these numbers is a fool, I hope it goes without saying.