For these homeowners, Banksy’s presence proved to be more of a curse than a boon.
A pair of UK landlords paid handsomely last month to get rid of a piece by a graffiti artist that appeared randomly on their property in August 2021.
Gary and Goken Coutts learned that their Suffolk home had been chosen as a canvas by the world-renowned street painter after their tenants informed them that the scaffolding had appeared randomly outside – only to disappear the next day, a replaced by a Banksy mural of Seagull, Daily Mail reported,
It is now estimated that this bird will have to spend around $ 247,000 to fly.
“At first it was obviously unbelievable,” Gary said of the artwork, which could be worth millions. But as things are progressing, it has become extremely tense. I’m not sure Banksy realized the unintended consequences on homeowners. If we could turn back the clock, we would.”
A local council official informed the couple that it could put a “preservation order” on the artwork and hold the couple personally responsible for maintaining it – at a cost of tens of thousands annually.
“When someone stole part of it and tried to sell it on Facebook, I had to hire a night watchman to take care of it,” Gary said. “Another time the vandals were caught with a dozen pots of white paint and apparently they were going to paint over it.”
Coutts reluctantly decided to rid himself of the burden of much more trouble than the distinction of owning an original Banksy.
In April, they hired a building firm to reinforce the wall where the seagull appeared before using a 40-foot crane to remove it in one piece.
Now, according to the Daily Mail, Coutts hopes to recover the more than $60,000 he spent selling the artwork and removing it.
They plan to replace it with a replica, but onlookers are not sympathetic, with one onlooker claiming Banksy was being “stolen from the city” on the night of its removal and others expressing sadness that It was going