By Tim Binnall
Residents of a California community are crying foul over a house that was recently painted hot pink and adorned with a pair of enormous emojis which, they believe, are in response to an ongoing neighborhood dispute. The bizarre battle reportedly began when Kathryn Kidd's neighbors in the city of Manhattan Beach tipped off local authorities that she was illegally renting the home on a short-term basis akin to an Airbnb.
No doubt thinking that the matter was resolved after Kidd was fined $4,000 for the offense, area residents were aghast when they woke up one morning shortly thereafter to discover that the home now sported a garish hot pink exterior and two huge emojis. And, as one can imagine, they interpreted the symbols to be a message about their perceived meddling since one has its mouth zipped shut and the other is sticking its tongue out.
"I think it's not even ambiguous actually," argued disgusted neighbor Dina Doll, "zip the lip, we all know what that means." For her part, Kidd was a bit more coy about the attention-grabbing paint job, claiming that it was really "a message to me to be positive and happy and love life." Her assertion would hold more weight were it not for a now-edited Instagram post from the company that painted the house.
Incredibly, the inadvertently damning showcase of their work read "are your neighbors constantly ratting you out? Have they cost you thousands in fines? Have you wanted to tell them off lately? Why risk a case, when you can hire me to paint them a pretty message?" While that would seem to confirm the suspicions of the community that the 'renovation' had been done in retaliation, so far the city has yet to intervene in the matter, much to the chagrin of the neighbors who are now stuck looking at the hot pink house and the emojis staring back at them.