LYNNWOOD — For months, Paul Vezetinski was at a loss about how to deal with whoever’s been painting graffiti on the light pole, electrical boxes, doors and walls of his aircraft parts business, LaFarge &Egge.

The company, at 5820 188th St. SW, had to hire painters to cover the graffiti, said Vezetinski, who also is property manager for a pet store and bread company adjacent to his business.

There had to be a way to catch the graffiti perpetrators in the act, he remembers thinking.

Then, one day, he had an idea.

He approached a couple in a motor home parked temporarily in the parking lot near his business and asked them to call him “if they ever see kids around.”

Less than a month ago, he got a call from the guy in the motor home.

“He said ‘I caught ‘em, I caught ‘em,’” Vezetinski said.

Lynnwood police were summoned. Three boys were arrested.

“I had to get new signs, I had to get signs re-painted,” Vezetinski said. “This whole thing is expensive and time consuming for anyone who has to deal with it, particularly the law enforcement officers.”

Graffiti’s on the rise and, to law enforcement officials, business owners and city public works crews who clean it up, it’s no laughing matter.

Police have arrested nine juveniles for “tagging,” a form of graffiti that uses symbols to send a message to rivals.

“These arrests have made a major impact on two large tagging crews and additional graffiti suspects are still under investigation,” said Lynnwood Police Spokeswoman Shannon Sessions.

The nine boys, all between ages 9 and 15, could face as many as five misdemeanor and 12 felony charges for malicious mischief, including possible jail time and restitution, Sessions added.

In a Jan. 24 memorandum to Mayor Don Gough and the City Council from Police Chief Steve Jensen, T.J. Brooks, a Lynnwood police officer and graffiti expert, noted a “significant” increase in graffiti last year. Police, public works and parks and recreation staff met the same day to discuss the problem and come up with solutions.

Police caught a key suspect late last year on a tip from someone who saw something suspicious, Sessions said. That tip led to infiltration of tagger groups via the Internet Web site MySpace.com, according to Jensen’s Jan. 24 memo.

The city’s created Lynnwood Against Graffiti, a removal program that brings together volunteer teams, police, city work crews and police to combat the problem.

“The sooner they clean it up the better,” said Brooks, a member of the police department’s special operations section.

He’s monitored and investigated graffiti for 17 years and now fields calls from surrounding police agencies seeking advice on how to deal with it.

Brooks said four types of graffiti are most common: Tagging; satanic/hate graffiti; gang graffiti and generic or non-threatening forms, such as “I love U” messages.

According to the National Council to Prevent Delinquency, about 80 percent of graffiti is hip-hop or “tagger” graffiti. Five percent are “pieces” — an abbreviation for masterpieces — 5 percent are miscellaneous and about 10 percent are gang-related.

Lynnwood falls in line with the national averages, Brooks said.

Graffiti shows up throughout the city. It can be found under overpasses, behind big-box retailers, on telephone company utility boxes, on street signs, even churches.

And graffiti isn’t just an eyesore, it’s expensive. It can cost cities and businesses thousands of dollars to clean up the mess taggers and others leave behind.

John Kraushaar knows the cost of graffiti well. He’s property manager for much of Lynnwood Square, including Comp-USA and Sports Authority.

“I think they need to understand the consequences of what they’re doing,” Kraushaar said, pointing to the wall behind Comp-USA. “Our last quote to repaint the back of that building was $4,000.”

Multiply that quote by dozens and the real price of graffiti becomes clear, he added.

Painters tell him that one coat usually isn’t enough to cover graffiti and the wall has to be primed.

“A lot of that (cost) passes through to businesses, so they have to jack up their prices to cover it,” he said.

The taggers’ last big graffiti strike at Lynnwood Square was in November.

“This last year, it’s just been continuous,” he said. “I don’t think we’ve gone for two months without getting tagged.”

In Mountlake Terrace, tagger teams repeatedly strike along the Interurban Trail, said Police Chief Scott Smith.

“We haven’t seen anything that’s obviously gang-related,” he said.

Rod Neff, who lives along 176th Street SW near Kompact Kar Korner, said he’s fed up with graffiti near his house.

He’s seen graffiti appear again and again on a metal utility box near his house.

“I don’t know how many times the workers have been into that box,” he said.