Graffiti reports are up a third in Oakland. The jump is almost all District 7.

Seventy graffiti reports hit Oakland's 311 file in the last seven days. That is up a third from the three weeks before. It is not a citywide wave. It is a District 7 wave.

The Oakland 311 file shows 36 graffiti requests in District 7 in the week through September 1. The district logged 28 in the entire prior three weeks. One week carried more than three weeks had. District 7's share of the city's graffiti reports went from about 18 percent to more than half.

Everywhere else is flat or down. District 3 filed 11, against 26 before. District 6 filed 13, against 34. District 2 filed one, against 31. The map changed in one place, and that is usually the story worth reading.

The Hegenberger Road corridor carries the heaviest repeat load: seven of the week's 70 reports name Hegenberger addresses, and the file has coded 35 Hegenberger-area requests to District 7 over the past two weeks. One day, August 28, produced 25 graffiti reports citywide, the week's peak.

Context, because the number deserves it: this is not a record week. The trailing year averages about 62 reports a week, and August's 242 ran well below May's 425. The spike is a district story, not a citywide season. San Francisco's own graffiti surge, which dominated its file two weeks ago, cooled to about its baseline by September 1, so a regional tagging wave does not explain Oakland's map either. The record here says something local to the flatlands of District 7, and the file cannot say what.

The city has already moved on most of the week's reports: 41 of the 70 carry work orders, 23 are closed, three were canceled and three are pending. A closed entry in this file means the case is done, not that the wall stayed clean. The repeat addresses on Hegenberger are how you tell the difference.

What to do: report it, and keep the case number. Each graffiti report routes a work order, and repeat reports at the same corner are how a block becomes a known spot. If a wall on your street gets hit twice, file twice. The record is the only witness the budget listens to.