This is an archived article and the information in the article may be outdated. Please look at the time stamp on the story to see when it was last updated.

The houses on 39th street in Manhattan Beach were once painted a neutral palette of tans, whites and grays, complemented by the adventurous splash of light yellow or blue. But not now: One of the homes is sporting a bright paint job decorated with two giant emojis.

Neighbors say it’s retribution in a property dispute that has turned into a battle with the city.

A pink home on 39th Street in Manhattan Beach features two emojis in this 2019 photo. (Credit: Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times)
A pink home on 39th Street in Manhattan Beach features two emojis in this 2019 photo. (Credit: Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times)
Frustrated homeowners and renters from the El Porto neighborhood raised their concerns at a City Council meeting Tuesday night. The meeting marked the latest chapter in a saga that began in May when neighbors reported the home’s owner, Kathryn Kidd, to the city for using the property for short-term rentals, such as Airbnb, which is illegal in Manhattan Beach. After Kidd was fined for violating the city’s rental laws, the property was painted bubble-gum pink with yellow emojis, as first reported by Easy Reader News .

The mocking nature of the paint job, neighbors say, is in the emojis. An emoji on the duplex’s top floor shows one smiling face with its tongue sticking out and eyes looking in different directions crowned by long, bold eyelashes. Another on the lower level shares the same eyes and lashes but has a zipper across the mouth, representing the “shut up” emoji. Susan Wieland, a neighbor who reported Kidd, told Easy Reader News that she was wearing eyelash extensions when she once met Kidd.

Read the full story on LATimes.com.