Some see graffiti and tagging as an urban blight and eyesore; others view as it as post-modern public art.

Whatever side of the fence your allegiance stands, residents of Federal Way have seen an explosion of graffiti around the city in the past 18 months. On fences, sides of commercial buildings and ever increasingly, on residential garages and homes.

"It's really strange, about 13 years ago we had a big problem, particularly at the schools. Then it went away and we had almost no reports of graffiti for a long, long time. Now it's back, with a vengeance, particularly on residential properties," says Martin Nordby, a code compliance officer for the city of Federal Way.

Nordby is the only city official responsible for the ever-increasing caseload of tagging instances.

"I read somewhere that New York City has 70 officers, practically the size of our police department, who work solely on a graffiti task force alone," said Nordby. "It would be up to the city council to dedicate more resources to this issue to stem it."

Last week, Seattle Mayor Nichols, in his State of Seattle address, identified graffiti cleanup as one of the top priorities for the city, stating that "we will make it a goal to remove graffiti reported on public property within 48 hours, the same way we address potholes...[and] we will ask private property owners to clean up their graffiti, quickly, those that fail to do so voluntarily will be subject to city enforcement action."

In Federal Way, under the city's sign code, graffiti is considered an illegal sign, and it legally up to the property owner to remove it.

Nordby says that this presents a quandary for the city when it comes to enforcement. Does the city place removal responsibility on the person who has the ability to take action, or it that picking on the victim?

Last year the city received a grant to assist residential owners to defray the cleanup cost. When an incident of graffiti is reported, either by the property owner themselves, or by a disgruntled neighbor sick of looking at it, the city sends the property owner a letter telling them to take care of the problem as soon as possible.

The owner can then bring in the letter to city hall, get it endorsed, and take it to New Lumber and Hardware at 30854 Pacific Highway South. There they will receive $25 in credit to either pick out their own cleanup supplies or request the owner, Jim Eichholtz, for assistance.

"Unfortunately, in the five months since we started this program, only about 15 people, of the two or three dozen letters I've send out, have responded to get the voucher," said Nordby.

There is enough money left from the grant to provide for about 100 vouchers.

The city is responsible for graffiti removal on city property. Corporate storeowners often hire private companies, such as Goodbye Graffiti, a "corporate partner" of the much larger, national company, that is about two years into a three-year contract with Sound Transit.

Employees of Goodbye Graffiti come to Federal Way once a week to inspect the new transit station and bus stops around town, immediately removing any new "decorating" that may have appeared.

"We just keep removing it until the kids give up," Nordby said of the city's less-than-high tech removal techniques.