The senseless destruction has caused widespread disgust in the community with calls to have the vandals “named and shamed”.

Reformed tagger Chris Taiao said the recent tagging was “pathetic” and the culprits should be turned in.

“It’s not graffiti, graffiti is an art – this is just vandalism,” he said. “It’s child’s play. It’s little kids finding a spray can and going down the street hitting whatever they can.”

Mr Taiao said the tagging gave real graffiti artists like him a bad name and has offered tips to the community to help catch the vandals.

“To do it in Griffith you’re just asking for trouble, you’re asking to get caught,” he said. “The best way to catch them is to look at school bathrooms and see if the same tag appears there – that’s where they start practicing – that way you can find out which school they go to. You then look at desks or school books, the same tags will be in there too.”

Councillor Pat Cox, chair of the urban enhancement committee, said she was “sick of cleaning up their mess” and more needed to be done to track them down.

“I think it’s appalling,” she said. “It’s terrible they’ve targeted someone’s private property and it’s a horrible feeling to know they’ve been close enough to your home to do that.

“It always comes back to the people who have to clean it up, but how long can we keep doing this? There have to be repercussions for these people.”

Inspector Gordon Dunlop said anyone caught tagging in Griffith would be dealt with severely and called on parents to help curb the vandalism.

“Police treat this as a very serious crime within our community,” he said. “It’s a blight on our community when people want to damage public and private property.

“It’s time parents took responsibility. If their children are heading out at night, check their bags for spray paint cans or textas. It’s high time they were involved in stamping out this behaviour.”

Inspector Dunlop said anyone with information about the recent taggings should call the Griffith Police Station on 6969 4299 or Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 and information would be kept confidential.