One heart is romantic.

Two even more so.

Thirty hearts? Well, if they are painted all over the city, it's a crime and police want them gone.

Some are painted orange. Some green, and others red and white.

"Just the other day I noticed hearts painted on the bridge by Applebee's," said Shawn Stillman, coordinator of the UNIT in the Office of Neighborhood Assistance in Danbury, the office in charge of fighting graffiti and blight in general.

Stillman said he is trying to contact Danbury Police Officer Ken Utter, the city's graffiti expert to learn more about the hearts.

Stillman said sometimes people who produce graffiti are simply fooling around and sometimes they're sending a message.

What is happening in Danbury and Brookfield is a whole lot of hearts are being painted on walls, signs, parking meters and metal utility boxes.

Someone painted an orange heart on a brick pillar at Western Connecticut State University. The pillar holds up black wrought iron at the corner of Osborne Street and Fifth Avenue near the student parking garage. Without the heart, the brick pillar is fairly classy.

About 50 feet from there, two parking meters have small orange hearts painted on them in two brush strokes.

"We're one of the victims here," said Paul Steinmetz, director of University Relations at WestConn. "We're working to improve the neighborhood and this graffiti is pulling it down."

Another victim is Mark Nolan of Nolan Enterprises on Crosby Street, where one green heart was spray painted on a wall near his office and a second was painted across the street on the cement handrail that blocks people from falling into the Still River.

"It's graffiti. Graffiti is literally someone breaking the law by defacing someone else's property," Nolan said. Nolan said he saw the heart and meant to call Officer Utter, but forgot, until reminded when contacted for an interview about this news story. He said he will call the officer and Andrea Gartner, executive director of CityCenter Danbury, the downtown promotion and marketing district. Most of the graffiti, but not all of it, is in downtown Danbury.

The hearts have spread north to Brookfield now, as well, with a red heart painted on an electrical box in front of Candlewood Plaza. 

The newest hearts are the ones Stillman and Joe Cavo, president of Danbury's City Council, found on the uprights holding up I-84 as it crosses above Federal Road.

Cavo said he first saw the hearts on Crosby Street near Main (see photographs) and then he saw them elsewhere in the city.

"I saw the one on WestConn and Osborne. Now they're popping up everywhere," Cavo said. "They're starting to make the city look run down."

Stillman, with the UNIT, said the city had fewer complaints about graffiti in 2010 than in previous years, but that is why he wants to get on top of this new wave of graffiti quickly, so it doesn't turn into a bigger problem. The more the city has, the more shows up.

"We're on it. We see it and we don't like it," said Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton.