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Apparently their neighbors reported them for renting it out as Airbnb or similar (which the city doesn't allow). Then they painted the house bright pink with giant 😜 and 🤐 emoji on it. Now the neighbors are complaining about the mural, but the city says it's on private property 🤷‍♂️

Honestly I'm surprised - it sounds like the kind of area that would mandate specific shades of beige paint.

(LA Times, paywall)

latimes.com/california/story/2

@KelsonV There's a non-paywalled version of this story at the UK Guardian...

theguardian.com/technology/201

That said, I am wondering why the neighbors aren't responding in kind, rather than griping about lowering the tone of the neighborhood - but by "in kind" I mean murals that are clearly more beautiful than those represented by the initiator as "cheerful".

(Disclosure: I've threatened to paint "eyes of Buddha" that would stare into a local business...)

www.theguardian.comThe house painted with 'spiteful' smileys, and other emoji rowsA California woman has insisted that painting huge emojis on her house was not an attempt to get back at her neighbours – but it’s not the first time the Unicode characters have caused controversy

@OldBrushNewPaper It made international headlines?

Oh, of course it did. It's a weird story with emoji. 🤦‍♂️ 😂

Kelson's Sorta Old Account

@OldBrushNewPaper It's not really the kind of area where people would respond with better murals, though. I could see that happening in neighboring Hermosa Beach, but Manhattan Beach is...how should I say this...stuffier?

@OldBrushNewPaper Wow, I should have gone looking for the Easy Reader to begin with. (It's one of the two local papers in the area.) The owner comes off a *lot* worse with the additional background of how she allegedly treated the last long-term tenants.

easyreadernews.com/manhattan-b

Easy Reader NewsThe Emoji House war: A neighborhood feud erupts in El Porto By Mark McDermott