Kenneth Avery drives around Oak Cliff looking for signs. Not a sign of life, or a sign of good things to come. Signs. Signs made of plastic.
"Its like tossing trash on the street to me. You just tossed it in front of my house, my neighborhood," Avery said. "People come from other areas and other neighborhoods and they dump these signs in our neighborhoods and our communities, and it's just trash. It's trash. And we're tired of looking at them on our corners and in the middle of our neighborhoods."
Avery pulls over and picks up the plastic signs and puts them in his car. Sometimes, he'll gather 100 at a time. His last roundup netted him more than 4,500.
Avery calls the plastic ads "bandit signs". They advertise everything from tax help, to homes for sales. But Avery correctly points out, when placed in a public median, or a right of way, they're illegal.
Dallas code officer James Martin tells NBC DFW, the city does perform frequent sweeps of the city picking up the signs, but sometimes it's hard to keep up with.
Avery said the city doesn't do sweeps as often as he'd like.
"I keep coming out and the signs are still here. So if it keeps me to keep doing it, I'm going to keep doing it, but it's their job, " Avery said.
The City of Dallas does plan a sweep before the Super Bowl in the areas where NFL events will be held, but the sweep won't include Avery's neighborhood.
