14 DAY TRIAL // A woman from Cheltenham, a borough in Gloucestershire, England, has found a graffiti artwork painted on the side wall of her home, on Sunday morning.
The mural depicts three 1950s-style spies wearing sunglasses and equipped with listening devices outside a real phone booth.
It is believed that the piece of street art is the work of renewed “guerrilla artist” Banksy. The street painter has not yet officially claimed the work, but if it is confirmed as his creation, it would be his first in Great Britain for almost two years.
Karen Smith, the tenant of the house on Fairview Road, said, “I think it is pretty amazing. I heard male voices outside in the early hours but it wasn’t till I saw the tarpaulin screen at about 7.30am I thought anything of it.”
“I thought it might be something to do with the police, like when a crime happens. When I came out I saw people staring at it and asked them what they were looking at,” the woman added, according to the Mirror.
After being discovered on Sunday morning, the artwork has become the talk of the town, Smith says.
It seems that the mural painting more than doubled the house's value overnight, as it is worth a fortune. Similar works of art by Bansky reportedly sold for as much as £500,000 ($826,600 / €606,200).
“Girl with Red Balloon,” for instance, which had been painted on a wall in Shoreditch, east London, was bought for the staggering sum and had to be chainsawed off the building.
Unfortunately for the mother-of-three, she won't be able to benefit from the Banksy because she is not the landlady, she only rents the house from a private owner.
It is thought that the painting was actually intended as a nod to the town's role as the home for Government spy center GCHQ, especially because the artist chose the house in Cheltenham, which is located only three miles from the listening center's headquarters.
Although the artwork has not been claimed yet by the secretive artist, graffiti experts say it has all the hallmarks of the Bristol-born creator.
Website streetartnews, for instance, writes the following, “At the break of dawn, the British street artist showed up with a maintenance van and covered all the sides with tarpaulin to execute his new stencil. While not officially confirmed by his website, this piece has all the Banksy characteristics in narrative, style and execution.”