A mom from greater Toronto, Ontario, Canada, was sent a hateful note after she had a mural painted onto her garage door. Now, Sapna Shah has come forward to alert her community to the person lurking and waiting to pounce. In an anonymous note written to the busy mom in all capital letters, she was called “tasteless” and blamed for “devaluing” the property values in the neighborhood simply for a paint job on a garage door.
The mom from South Etobicoke shared a picture of the “nasty message” on Facebook. The mural depicts a relaxing scene of rolling green hills and constellations in the night sky. There is little likelihood that this pleasant painting will reduce property values in the area. Nevertheless, the person who wrote the note was compelled to lash out at Shah and hurt her feelings.
The note stated: “You just devalued all of the homes in this area with that hideous graffiti at the front of your house. It has made the entire neighborhood look like a low-income ghetto.”
It continued, “You couldn’t have put it inside your house on an interior wall versus force all to have to live with that? You have compromised everyone’s property value and resale opportunities by doing it with no consideration for anyone but your tasteless self.
“What a total lack of respect for your neighbors and anyone else’s value of property or pride of ownership in this neighborhood. I feel sorry for the homeowners on your street, and thank God it’s not on ours. But every visitor we have will now have to drive by that s*** on the way to us like they’re driving through the hood. Shame on you! You have no class!”
As it turned out, this was the second note Shah received regarding the harmless mural. The first note told her, “You do not live in a house! This is a community.”
Shah attacked her hater on Facebook, writing that her six-year-old child failed to comprehend the type of monster who would write “such a hateful letter to us.”
In an interview with Toronto.com, Shah commented that the letter had “undertones of racism, elitism, and classism,” which the critic hid behind a thin veil about property values.
“We’re a brown family. How dare you say ‘low-income ghetto’ to anyone, let alone a brown family,” Shah said.
When Shah posted her message on Facebook along with a copy of the nasty letter, she was inundated with support from people around Toronto. They were appalled that someone was sending hateful letters like this to a homeowner who was just having some fun with her six-year-old child.
Shah has since taken security measures to protect her home from the person who wrote the letter. She has filed a police report concerning the harassment and installed security cameras. She does not plan to remove the mural because it is her property, and there seems to be only one person who does not like the painted garage door.
What do you think of her mural? Would it really bring property values down?