By Ji Lina
Entering the hall of No. 7 building of New Haicheng Community, we saw a note on the notice board hanging on a prominent place: Please post all kinds of ads on it. If not, they will be cleared immediately. To the delight of the residents, some commercial advertisements, used to be rampant in the building, have “obediently removed to” the board recently.
When asked about with the countermeasures against the runaway adlets, Zhang Jianxin, secretary of Party branch of Xinyi Neighborhood Committee explained frankly that in the past, they always applied ways that “only cure the symptoms, but not the disease itself”. He said, “Every time before the spot inspection, we would ask property management staffs and volunteers to clear the ads in short order. Seemingly, all this took immediate effect, but the ads would always stage a comeback before long.” But now, “Since it’s hard to stop ads thoroughly, we simply provide a special place for them. In this case, billposters don’t need to go upstairs and post ads covertly.”
Mr. Zhang told us that numerous ads come into the No. 7 building because of its special condition. On the one hand, there are 168 flats in 27 floors, including 22 flats for commercial use (offices and warehouses). On the other hand, those for residential use are generally the big ones. Thus the apartment owners usually rent them out to different people, resulting in the mix and instability of residents and increasing the difficulty of supervision. Some billposters seized this opportunity to sneak into the building whose corridors fell victims to runaway adlets.
Over the years, the committee has found it a hard nut to illuminate the ad posting since it’s hard to block the source of ads. For instance, Meng Fanjian, who lives on the 8th floor whose corridor used to be dotted with the posted ads covering the electricity meter, fire-fighting equipment, and the wall, said, “Just a day or two after installation, the newly-installed safety door was posted with ads concerning door unlocking service or moving facilities service. Once, an adlet about how to unlock was posted right on my lock. It was really laughable.”
Three years ago, in order to improve the household surroundings, Mr. Meng and other 5 warm-hearted residents formed the first line of defense to clear the ads. They each took charge of a certain area, patrol around at a certain time, and cleared the ads the moment they found them. In addition, they also bought wall paint with their own money and repainted the wall where sticking ads had been cleared. During this period, the brainstorming sessions among the residents improved their measures before they hit upon a brilliant idea: setting up a notice board exclusively for the billposters.
Now, this reasonable way has formed a defense line in the committee. Firstly, staffs will lose no time to clear the ads not posted on the board. Secondly, this special column for ads helps promote day-to-day information and the orderliness of the building. The move is going to serve as a success story for other buildings in the charge of the committee soon.