PAWTUCKET -- A Christmas gift gone bad is the most reasonable explanation for the aggravation that has visited the area recently.

Cars and homes have been shot up by paintballs in Pawtucket and Central Falls over the past few days.

The owners of several houses and cars have called police, reporting vandalism.

David Baraw, 119 Hughes Ave., was one of the targets. He told police Wednesday morning that he heard several thumps shortly before midnight, but blamed the noise on his dog.

When he got up at 5:30 a.m., he saw 10 pink splotches on the front of his home, the projectiles fired from the air-powered guns used in paintball games.

There have been a half-dozen other reports since Christmas, but police are certain many incidents are left unreported.

Officers on the midnight shift have been asked to keep watch during their travels through the city after Officer John Ricci noticed several houses that were hit by paintballs but saw that none of the home owners reported the incidents.

The vandalism has not stopped at the city line.

Central Falls Police have spoken with three people whose cars became paintball targets sometime before dawn Wednesday.

There have been several other recent complaints about the vandalism, according to Police Capt. Paul Nadeau.

"With paintballs, graffiti or pellet gun vandalism, we will see a rash of incidents over the course of a couple of weeks," Nadeau said. "Then, we will pick up one or two juveniles, and it will stop.

"It is difficult to catch the people with the paintball guns or the pellet guns. They travel around in a car so the damage isn't geographically concentrated.

"Eventually, though, we catch them or someone calls us with enough information for us to make an arrest."

Police are asking city residents to pay attention.

It is illegal to carry a paintball gun around in a car unless the piece is unloaded, broken down and in a carrying case, and you are transporting it to or from a facility where it will be used legally. Police seize paintball guns when they find juveniles carrying them.

Anyone who sees someone firing paintballs from a car is asked to note the license plate and call that information in immediately, police say.

Paintballs generally are albumen pods loaded with a coloring agent suspended in water or a water-soluble gel.

The stain left behind by paintballs are designed to be easily removed by water.

Besides the aggravation the vandalism causes, police also worry about someone reacting to the sight of a gun being pointed their way, Pawtucket Detective Major John Whiting said.

That could provoke fear, or it could cause someone with a real gun to shoot back.

"We are concerned because this involves a gun, even though it is a paintball gun," Whiting said. "That has caught our attention.

"Our detectives are working with patrol officers on this. We're hoping to stop this before someone gets hurt."