Painting the walls.

Montréal is a complex city.

In Mile-End graffiti flows over the gates and walls of nearly all the alleys. I’ve been walking the back alleys a lot lately. Things are looking good.

But apparently, in West Montréal, you can’t even paint your own garage the way you want to. Any form of expression involving paint and what you own can be considered ‘visual pollution’ and might not be considered ‘harmonious with the neighbourhood’.

I’m not a home owner. I prefer to rent, at least until that great multi-million dollar a month career move happens. But if I were, I’m not sure I would care so much about my property values that I would complain about a neighbour’s poor choice of colour and paint. When did we start looking a roof over our heads in terms of ‘If I sell this shelter now, I can get a bigger shelter with a fridge that has a teevee in the door’?

I was under the mistaken idea that when you owned a house, you could do what you wanted, providing you weren’t endangering folks, or painting other garage doors with a pirate flag.

And that’s what I would say should happen more often anyway.