‘Piss Bandit’ who taunts locals with urine bottles labeled ‘HIV positive’ is California’s number-one menace
Someone has been pissing off the rich of California.
Every few days, a mysterious figure in a mask and latex gloves carries bottles of urine to an affluent neighborhood, carefully arranges them on a utility box, and then vanishes into the night.
Known as the “Piss Bandit,” for the past six years he’s left his mark on Pasadena with soda bottles, juice cartons, and even gallon jugs full to the brim with yellow liquid.
Nobody knows his identity and he taunts the locals with notes and drawings scrawled on his bottles: “human urine,” crude smiley faces, or sometimes “HIV positive.”
The Piss Bandit sometimes strikes multiple times a week with bottles appearing in the morning and disappearing by nightfall.
The bizarre behavior has been going on for so long that round rings have been etched into the paint of the utility box.
The city outfitted the box with a pointed metal cover in an attempt to stop the flow, but the bandit simply tore it off, leaving a fresh batch of bottles for their trouble.
“It’s been a tug-o-war between the neighborhood and this guy,” said Grant Yansura, who launched a monthlong investigation into the culprit with his partner, filmmaker Derek Milton.
The first video of their investigation gained more than 600,000 views on TikTok. To Milton and Yansura, the bandit isn’t a disgusting vandal, but a vigilante artist – a Robin Hood figure who has made the town of Pasadena his Little John.
“His dedication to his craft is what intrigued us,” Yansura told the Post.
Yet for the neighborhood — an oasis of expensive homes, swimming pools, and carefully manicured lawns — the bandit is a number-one menace.
“I found it disgusting. Never did I ever consider it an art form in any way shape or form,” said Oscar Laguna, who owned a house near the offender’s drop site until February.
Another neighbor posted a hand-written note for the bandit: “If I catch you leaving your piss here, I will make you drink every last drop! … You have been warned!”
Burning for answers, Milton and Yansura staked out the drop site, but their subject never showed. When they installed an infrared game camera near the box, the pee-roll footage showed the bandit’s latex-gloved hand reaching over a barrier wall and placing the bottles, one by one, like candles on a cake.
Next, they left a note for the bandit: “I am a big fan of your installation art … I think your work is on the same level as Banksy + Shepard Fairy.” The note came with a marker and interview questions for him to answer.
Not everyone agreed. As they were staking out the site, one man pulled over, fuming, and asked why the pair were hyping him up instead of trying to bring him to justice. “He said, ‘Stop making it funny! Do something about it!’” Yansura told the Post. “But what they want me to do about it throw a net on him?”
The bandit himself doesn’t seem to care for his own fans. Not only did he ignore their note, but he stole their camera. Later, the camera sent something to Milton’s cloud storage account: a stunning seaside vista that metadata identified as Sunset Cliffs, San Diego – 126 miles from the piss box.
The bandit’s next bottle drop included a full one-gallon jug with a drawing of a demonic face. “He was on the offensive, toying with us,” Milton said in a video.
Finally, the TikTok sleuths placed another camera at the side, this time with a voice intercom function. But the bandit ignored their efforts to communicate and simply stole that camera, too.
After that, the pair decided to flush the case.
“His dedication to his craft is what intrigued us,” and we wanted to know why. But we realized he doesn’t want to tell us why,” Yansura said. “Sometimes you just have to let an artist pee.”
