Why is everything painted fluorescent orange?

Bit of a strange one… my girlfriend just rang me, she went past our block and our tap and water meter has been painted fluorescent orange. Whoever did this has also written our lot number on the gutter and there is a stripe across our driveway.

Does anyone have any idea why or who would have done this? We have not started building yet, our builder will be starting shortly but I only just got an email an hour ago from them saying that they are just waiting for the ‘Authority to Commence Construction’ from our bank. So it can’t be anything to do with our builder, the other thing is, none of the blocks around us have been done.

If anyone can shed some light I would really appreciate it.

Builders generally do it - they mark the lot number on the kerb, so it's easy for people making deliveries or tradies turning up to work on your build to find the right place. They also mark any cracks, chips or broken sections of concrete on council land (footpath, crossover, kerb etc) and take photos to prove it wasn't them who caused the damage.

Painting the water meter is probably just a sign of a cautious builder - they don't want some idiot in a truck to run over it while delivering materials and leave them with a bill for repairs....

All the blocks around us were sporting orange/green/pink/blue fluoro markings a few days before site start.

This makes sense, especially considering we have already had our meter run over by some other builder down the street, but our file is still being processed by our builder, would they have sent someone out already to do this?

Sounds like they have.... I don't know who else would do it.

Well thats what I thought, hopefully that means they will be starting very soon, maybe even this week

At closer inspection, the mark on our crossover is over a crack, I guess someone has been out there, it’s just strange how no one else, even those building with PD, have had it done to their block, plus it was just a surprise considering our file was transferred to construction on Friday and the spray appeared on Thursday, possibly earlier.

I just hope it comes off, I tried removing a spot on the water meter and it seems to come off relatively easy, but I couldn’t get it to budge from the concrete. Hopefully by the time we move in it will fade away or wash away.

The paint used should be unstable to ultraviolet radiation, so it should start fading after about six weeks or so.

Unless, of course, they ran out of the UV unstable paint and grabbed the nearest stable fluoro paint as they did when marking out our neighbour's property. We are a couple of months on, and our brick work is still sporting flouro colours.

Our lot number is still recorded on the gutter in bright blue paint....more than three years after it was done. It needs to last throughout the build, until council inspect their property once the house is complete, so I have no idea what they use.

I don't even notice it any more...it's slowly fading anyway.