Mobile phone footage taken by local residents near Tha Pae Gate shows a foreign teenager or youth spray-painting an abandoned building in the early hours of 21st January, at around 12.30am.
The video captures the man climbing onto a second-floor balcony roof of a vacant roadside building and spray-painting its metal grilles, ignoring shouts from nearby residents and tourists telling him to stop. After repeatedly spraying the structure, he climbed back inside the building before fleeing through a side exit into a nearby alley. Residents later filed a police report.
Later that same morning, a fire broke out inside the abandoned building. Firefighters were able to bring the blaze under control before it spread further. Locals believe the fire may have been caused by itinerants or mischief makers gathering inside the derelict building and lighting fires, noting that the property has long been left unattended and is frequently used by homeless individuals and groups of youths.
On 23rd January, a local resident identified as Ann (not her real name), 37, who witnessed the incident, took reporters to the site on Moon Muang Road Soi 3, Sri Phum subdistrict. The area, including the building, alleyway, walls, power poles, utility boxes, signs and nearby homes, has been extensively vandalised with spray paint, including images, lettering and obscene words, creating what residents describe as an eyesore in the heart of the city.
Ann said that she believed the foreign man appeared intoxicated and recalled confronting him, only to be told to mind her own business. Despite calling police, officers arrived too late as the suspect had already fled.
Residents say repeated complaints to local authorities have gone unresolved and are calling for serious action, warning that ongoing vandalism, littering and public defecation in the area are damaging Chiang Mai’s tourism image.
