On the south facet of the 134 Freeway in Pasadena, amid the comb and the grime and detritus, there may be an empty tub of Dreyer’s vanilla ice cream and an empty drink cup from Subway.
They look like litter, maybe solid out of fast-moving automobiles by careless freeway drivers.
Actually, they conceal strategically positioned safety cameras aimed toward capturing the person some in Pasadena have named the “Piss Bandit.”
The thriller man has a penchant for putting full bottles of human urine on a particular Pasadena Water & Energy electrical field on Colorado Boulevard. For years, he has deposited full bottles of pee (unscientific however newspaper-safe time period) atop a seemingly random electrical field.
That conduct is odd sufficient. However what concerning the two self-appointed documentarians who’ve devoted themselves to figuring out the urine bottler and understanding his methods? The story is a confluence of basic California weirdness and the Hollywood present enterprise hustlers all the time there to trace it.
Bottles of urine are left on {an electrical} field.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Instances)
Derek Milton enters stage left, dressed as a building employee in a brilliant yellow vest and a tough hat. Like many pretend building staff in Los Angeles, Milton is a filmmaker. He has come to the facet of the 134 Freeway on this sunny morning in September with Grant Yansura — additionally a filmmaker and proprietor of a skateboard firm — whom Milton has disguised as his “just lately divorced, raveled mission supervisor.”
It is rather essential that they gown as a building crew as a result of they should be incognito to analyze Urinegate. First, they don’t wish to be mistaken by passing drivers and pedestrians for the one that’s truly leaving the bottles. That might be an actual state of affairs. Second, it’s humorous.
Derek Milton holds one among his camouflaged safety cameras.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Instances)
And it must be humorous, as a result of the last word objective right here is to show the bottles of urine into Web gold.
The disguises are one of many recurring bits in Milton and Yansura’s six-part, deadpan-comedy-meets-true-crime documentary sequence on TikTok concerning the urine depositor (assume HBO’s “The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst”) (on second thought, don’t). The brief movies have made minor stars of the 2 filmmakers; the primary installment drew greater than 6 million views, and their subsequent movies have racked up thousands and thousands as properly.
They’ve been acknowledged in airports and eating places, though their followers don’t all the time keep in mind their names.
“You’re the piss man,” followers say when recognizing one among them within the wild. Milton and Yansura attempt to stay humble.
The continued documentary has a easy premise. Milton and Yansura hope to determine who the urine bottler is and why he does what he does. They insist their objective is to not publicly determine the urinator, however to grasp his motives.
Milton and Yansura say they consider it’s one particular person, a person. Town of Pasadena additionally stated it’s investigating a person, whom officers didn’t determine.
For the reason that bottles began showing round 2022, Milton stated, a number of theories concerning the supply and goal have been asserted, then discarded like so many bottles of…
Some thought the person — and other people invariably assume it’s a person — was offering clear urine for individuals to go drug checks. Others thought the urine contained liquefied medicine. Some didn’t consider the urine was truly urine.
After leaving safety cameras camouflaged as discarded containers, Derek Milton, proper, and Grant Yansura examine their digital camera angles on a telephone.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Instances)
Yansura and Milton sought to dispel these doubts by performing a urinalysis and a drug take a look at on one of many urine bottles. They decided it was “clear, wholesome piss,” as they are saying of their video.
Why have been they keen to do a urinalysis on a stranger’s pee? Yansura suffers from anosmia, Milton says within the video, which means he has no sense of odor. And in addition, humorous.
“Grant was within the zone,” Milton stated partially 4 of the sequence. “He flawlessly accomplished the urinalysis.”
Yansura accomplished the drug take a look at “masterfully.”
“I feel we each do fairly humorous, bizarre issues,” Yansura stated. “Him and I each wish to go manner too far into element [about] seemingly mundane or not-that-important issues.”
I merely needed to know extra, so final week I joined them. The movies weren’t sufficient. I wanted to see the receptacles of urine with my very own eyes. Milton requested if I’d be comfy carrying a building pinny. Positive, I stated, why not.
We walked throughout Colorado Boulevard, and there they have been, glinting within the Pasadena sunshine, 13 bottles stuffed with liquid in various hues — from a worryingly darkish amber to a hydrated, gentle gold. It was weeks’ value of urine.
The explanations we have been there have been twofold. Yansura and Milton have been putting in new cameras contained in the Subway cup, the Dreyer’s ice cream tub and a pretend shrub. They’d place the cameras within the neighborhood of {the electrical} field in hopes of capturing video of the person behind the bottles.
Three kinds of cameras have been put in (and this subsequent half is essential): a Reolink Go PT Plus, a Reolink Go PT Extremely and a Reolink Go Ranger PT. It’s essential as a result of Milton thinks it’s humorous to make use of the complete names of the cameras each time he mentions them in his movies, like they’re British royalty.
The second cause we have been there was to see the bandit’s handiwork. The Pasadena Division of Water & Energy had put in a pyramid of steel atop {the electrical} field within the hope of utilizing hostile structure to finish the bandit’s reign of liquid terror. Days later, the pyramid had been eliminated, probably via the usage of a crowbar, and bottles of urine as soon as once more befouled the field.
“This particular person eliminated/destroyed (vandalism) the pyramid and positioned extra bottles there,” stated Lisa Derderian, a spokeswoman for town of Pasadena, in an electronic mail.
The division has since fabricated a brand new pyramid, she stated. “Appears to be working to date.”
Clearly, not everyone in the neighborhood discovered the urine state of affairs amusing.
Complaints have poured in from residents and a councilman. Police are investigating, in response to Derderian.
“Hey humorous man,” one particular person had scribbled in a handwritten observe affixed to {the electrical} field. “If I catch you leaving your piss right here, I’ll make you drink each final drop! You’ll have wished I referred to as the cops! I’m watching you and also you don’t know who I’m, however I do know who you’re. You could have been warned!”
The observe was months outdated. The bandit stays as lively as ever.
Others discovered the state of affairs endlessly amusing.
“It’s fairly improbable,” stated Daniel Rossman, who pulled over to the facet of the street to affix us when he acknowledged Milton and Yansura, whose movies he has been watching religiously together with his spouse.
“Plenty of us have pushed by and puzzled, however I respect you’re doing the labor to reply the unanswered questions,” he advised the filmmakers. “Actual life is unusual generally.”
Derek Milton shares a video of the wrongdoer that he captured from a hidden digital camera.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Instances)
Communication with the mysterious urine depositor has confirmed tough due to his full lack of curiosity in talking with Milton or Yansura.
The filmmakers have captured footage of him greater than as soon as. Within the first occasion, the digital camera exhibits the arms of a person eerily reaching over the freeway wall in the dead of night and arranging quite a few bottles of urine on {the electrical} field.
One other time they put in a ReoLink Go PT Plus within the tree above the place the thriller man stands when he locations his bottles. The digital camera had a operate via which Yansura and Milton might watch the world reside and communicate to whoever was there. When the person appeared late one night time, the filmmakers’ hearts started to race.
Yansura, who was watching the motion on his telephone, was not capable of talk. He stated he was drunk (or because the Brits say, pissed) at a on line casino, and it was loud there. It fell on Milton to make first contact.
“What’s up, dude?” Milton stated. Traditional.
The person seemed up briefly, then continued working.
“I wish to interview you. Are you able to hear me?” Milton continued.
The person froze. Then he seemed again up slowly, stood on high of the fence and eliminated the digital camera. He didn’t say a phrase.
He appeared to have no real interest in talking with them, a lot much less revealing his id.
One other time, Milton had left a board with questions written on it and a Sharpie for the bandit to reply questions similar to “How and why did you select this electrical field?” and “Do you’ve got an artist identify?” The bandit returned to depart extra urine, however didn’t go away any solutions.
His id stays a thriller. Milton and Yansura are engaged on their seventh video within the sequence.
Regardless of the bandit’s unwillingness to work together with the filmmakers, Milton does consider the person has watched the viral movies.
For years, the bandit wrote, “urine” or “human urine” on the bottles of urine. Since Milton and Yansura began posting their “Piss Bandit” movies on-line, for the primary time, the person has modified what he writes on the bottles.
“Human piss,” they now learn.