I have a UILabel in a UITableCell, and when I make the label's background transparent, I get these strange ghost characters (see image below), and it looks terrible. Here's my code:

Left:

```
UILabel *unreadLabel = [[UILabel alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(270, 7, 25, 25)];
unreadLabel.text = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%d", source.unreadCount];
unreadLabel.textColor = [UIColor colorWithWhite:100.0f/255.0f alpha:1.0];
unreadLabel.font = [UIFont systemFontOfSize:11.0f];
[cell addSubview:unreadLabel];
[unreadLabel release];

```

Right is the same as the left but with this added:

```
unreadLabel.backgroundColor = [UIColor colorWithWhite:1.0 alpha:0.0];

```

UnreadCount is a NSInteger. 

![alt text](https://i.stack.imgur.com/DWac4.png)