GASPERICH — In what’s being called a senseless act of vandalism against a perfectly good structure, someone has blanketed a water tower south of the capital with hundreds of rolls of toilet paper.
Observers, including commuters from France who usually admire the stately khaki edifice as they enter Luxembourg-ville, were shocked on Tuesday morning when they first noticed that it had been rendered nearly white.
Gustave Dagbert, a delivery driver from Metz, was among the first to report the crime to police.
“At first it appeared that the beautiful château d’eau — as we call water towers in my homeland — was surrounded by scaffolding, and I worried that it had been damaged and was undergoing repairs, or worse, that it was going to be demolished,” he said. “When I got closer, I understood the awful truth.”
Police aren’t saying if they have any leads, but this act could be related to a string of so-called teepee incidents in the area, most recently in February when a lycée teacher awoke one morning to find her scooter covered in pink toilet paper.
Gasperich resident and part-time healer Clemence Muller, who visits the water tower at least once a day to give thanks for the awesome pressure it supplies to her toilet, says that the perpetrators should be given the severest punishment allowed by law.
“How dare these troublemakers profane a sacred water temple,” she said. “And what a waste of so much toilet paper which is made from the bodies of our brother and sister trees.”
“And don’t they know that there are people in some countries like Belgium that don’t even have toilet paper?” she added.
Officials say they have not decided if they will dispatch crews to perform the dangerous and expensive task of cleaning up the estimated 600-rolls worth of toilet paper, or if they will simply leave it as a testament to the spirit of contemporary art.
