Workers clean ‘famous gum wall’ in Seattle

And one person said: “Oh my god is the gum wall clean yet so we can just start calling it the wall and be done with this nightmare”.

Seattle’s sticky, rainbow-colored Gum Wall has attracted tourists for 20 years and has dominated #Seattle Instagram posts, but now the Pike Place staple is being removed by industrial steamers.

After its cleaning, the Gum Wall is expected to be repopulated with new colorful pieces of chewed gum.

But this is not the end of Seattle’s gum wall – the owners of the building fully expect people to begin sticking their gum again soon. With roughly 150 pieces of gum per brick, there are likely more than 1 million wads, she said. Notice the “was” in that sentence, because it was finally taken down with a super powerful steam gun.

The cleaning was announced on The Gum Wall Pike Place Market Facebook page earlier this month.

Over the years, gum has expanded beyond the original wall and spread across an area eight feet high and over 54 feet wide. “But it also draws rats”, an onlooker says.

People first began sticking their gum to the wall while waiting for shows at the nearby Market Theater.

“The machine will melt the gum with 280-degree steam; it will fall to the ground, and a two- to three-man crew will collect the gum in five-gallon buckets”.

According to local reports, the thorough steam-clean should take up the remainder of the week.

By Crawford’s rough calculation, there are about 2,200 pounds of gum on the walls.