Council’s nightmare as vandals make rude letter swap on anti-gum poster

Exeter City Council found itself in a sticky situation after vandals targeted a campaign poster encouraging people to throw away their gum. Ironically, the culprit used gum to share their defiant message

A council has found itself in a sticky situation after vandals targeted an anti-littering poster – and made a rude letter swap.

Keen to encourage people to throw away their gum, Exeter City Council displayed the sign on a bin as part of a wider campaign. But the plan ‘backfired’ after it was spotted by a troublemaker, who noticed ‘gum’ is just one letter away from ‘c**.”

They then proceeded to blank out part of the ‘g’, changing the sign that read ‘In Exeter we bin our gum’, to something much more unsavoury.

In a cruel twist, the mystery artist also appeared to use gum to complete their project, leaving their snack on the side of the bin when it should have been placed inside instead.

The cheeky addition was quickly noticed by a stunned passer-by, who took to the internet to share photos of their finding.

One post to Reddit last week shows a close-up shot of the gummy graffiti. Meanwhile, a more recent post to TikTok by @calathea.andcacti captured the mishap on video. The social media user captioned the clip: “Well that backfired,” and it quickly racked up over 900,000 views and 88,000 likes.

In response, commenters were quick to share jokes about the unusual sighting. “Great, now I finally have somewhere for all the socks on top of my wardrobe,” read one reply. Someone else said: “Exeter says NO to unwanted pregnancies.”

Meanwhile, another claimed it was “only a matter of time,” and others found the whole thing funny. “Exeter at all it’s finest,” quipped one fan. “I need to go find this,” said a second.

But likely less impressed, @exetercitycouncil replied: “GUM!! GUM!!!!” Thankfully, the story has a happy ending.

A spokesman for Exeter City Council told The Mirror: “Ironically the mischievous letter changing was done in some instances using chewing gum! We have now taken down these signs so that they do not cause further offence.”

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