{"id":41298,"date":"2025-04-22T14:28:11","date_gmt":"2025-04-22T14:28:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/41298\/"},"modified":"2025-04-22T14:28:11","modified_gmt":"2025-04-22T14:28:11","slug":"mystery-as-normal-homes-in-uk-towns-daubed-in-red-paint-and-no-one-knows-why-uk-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/41298\/","title":{"rendered":"Mystery as normal homes in UK towns daubed in red paint – and no one knows why | UK | News"},"content":{"rendered":"

A new theory has emerged to solve the mystery of homes targeted in red paint attacks<\/a> across quiet UK neighbourhoods. Residents of Chingford Road in Walthamstow, London, were the latest victims, where at least a dozen homes were daubed on March 13 with bright red paint across windows, bricks and cars, before culprits returned five days later to repeat it.<\/p>\n

Distressed families said they had to clean their homes at least twice to get it all off, while others received paint-splattered<\/a> anonymous letters claiming there was a brothel on the road, without evidence. The word ‘brothel’ was also painted in black on one home, echoing other incidents across the UK where the same word was spray-painted, with various misspellings. Residents, councillors and police officers have suggested various motives behind the nationwide attacks, including it being a “very bad” imitation of street artist Banksy, a strange social media trend, or copycat criminals.<\/p>\n

However, a criminologist has now linked it to Chinese gangs<\/a> after masked men were caught on CCTV spraying red paint on a house in Acton, west London, and the word ‘brothel’ on the floor.<\/p>\n

In the video posted by London Centric,<\/a> they were recorded speaking Mandarin, which, according to Oliver Chan, an associate professor of criminology at the University of Birmingham, is key to understanding what might be behind the attacks.<\/p>\n

He told the Mail that red paint attacks<\/a> go back as far as the 50s in Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan and parts of South-East Asia, where Chinese criminal gangs would use it as a warning to those who\u2019ve fallen behind on debts.<\/p>\n

Chan explained: “This vandalism is not being done for fun and is clearly a warning of some kind, so it\u2019s not a massive leap to suggest it is linked to war between rival gangs.”<\/p>\n

He added that there was a 55% increase in recorded cases of \u2018red-paint vandalism\u2019 from 2017 to 2021 in Hong Kong.<\/p>\n

Labour MP Stella Creasy has raised concerns over the Walthamstow vandalism with the policing minister, Diana Johnson.<\/p>\n

She said: “It\u2019s deeply troubling that this kind of incident has been reported around the country, but there\u2019s no central co-ordination…so residents in Walthamstow have been told the police won\u2019t call on them for days despite this happening at a number of venues.”<\/p>\n

In August 2023, an apartment block in Huddersfield was sprayed with red and black paint<\/a> and the words \u2018Brothel 3\u2019. Eight months later, a Thai massage parlour called Yonlada was targeted in the same town. Both cases went unsolved.<\/p>\n

Between September and November 2024, two apartment blocks in Bradford were slashed with red paint and the word \u2018brothel\u2019 or \u2018borthel\u2019, alongside what looked like mobile phone numbers.<\/p>\n

West Yorkshire Police ruled out that the attacks were linked, although a resident who owned a flat in the blocks dismissed this.<\/p>\n

Retired engineer Andrew Mitchell, 67, told the BBC<\/a> at the time: “You look at the lettering in both incidents and it\u2019s very similar writing. I mean, two incidents where red paint\u2019s thrown and the word ‘borthel’ is used. Not linked? There\u2019s got to be something there, hasn\u2019t there?”<\/p>\n

In London, there have been 14 red-paint attacks since November 2023, when two properties in West Hampstead were defaced, followed by two houses in neighbouring Kilburn just four months later, with the misspelled word \u2018broethel\u2019.<\/p>\n

A Thai massage parlour, a pub and four homes were vandalised in Ealing Broadway in January 2025, before a karaoke bar and a gentlemen\u2019s club was targeted in St John\u2019s Wood, followed by a row of houses in Leytonstone weeks later.<\/p>\n

The Metropolitan Police<\/a> has been contacted for comment by The Express. It has previously confirmed an investigation is underway.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A new theory has emerged to solve the mystery of homes targeted in red paint attacks across quiet…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":41299,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7757],"tags":[748,188,534,23415,393,23420,23419,4884,257,7834,23418,23416,23417,16,15,9181],"class_list":{"0":"post-41298","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-london","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-crime","10":"tag-crime-news","11":"tag-criminal-gangs","12":"tag-england","13":"tag-gangs","14":"tag-gangs-news","15":"tag-great-britain","16":"tag-london","17":"tag-london-news","18":"tag-red-paint","19":"tag-red-paint-attacks","20":"tag-red-paint-walthamstow","21":"tag-uk","22":"tag-united-kingdom","23":"tag-walthamstow"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114382091612398349","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41298"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41298\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}