Man Tags Own Home With Expletive, and Enrages Neighbors

Residents of a Texas community are up in arms over graffiti that has been spray-painted across the front of a neighbor's home. Only the home's owner isn't too concerned -- after all, he did it himself.

Daryl McClain scrawled the message "To the motherf_____ that stole my truck. U R a dead man" across the front of the home's garage after his truck was stolen from his home on March 10.

Though McClain (pictured below) says that he only wrote the message to get his truck back (beneath the message, he wrote "2K NQA" meaning he is offering $2,000 for information), his neighbors say that it's an unnecessary and offensive eyesore that's been attracting unwanted attention to otherwise peaceful Clearwood Street in San Antonio.

"It's like a parade route. Everybody comes by," neighbor Roy Patty told local television station KENS-5. "Children shouldn't be able to read something like that."

But McClain defends that he has every right to do so ("Code Compliance says I'm not doing a thing wrong," he told the station), and that he is simply exercising his freedom of speech.

And he's not the only one. McClain's "freedom of speech" defense against his angry neighbors is reminiscent of an infamously ornery resident of Brighton, Colo., who also painted a confrontational notice on his residence, which abutted a property for sale in the rural town.

The sign, which read "WARNING / 3 Rottweilers / Loud Parties / Loud Music / Loud Cars / Anti-Horse / Fireworks / Call for more info" was painted by neighbor Titus Terranova as a message to potential buyers of his next-door neighbors' home. (That property has since been pulled off the market.)

But cases like these are challenging to take to court since, as the San Antonio Police Department says, these residents are not necessarily breaking the law. In McClain's case in particular, the city is not allowed to regulate what citizens paint on their homes (one California family has even gone so far as to turn their home into an advertising billboard in return for mortgage payments). Also, as McClain didn't actually spell the expletive out, he technically did not use profanity.

"I would just like my stuff back," McClain says.