Dealing with graffiti and vandalism as a small business owner can be a frustrating and expensive problem. Fortunately, there are ways to prevent it from being an ongoing problem. The following tips can help you fight against the vandals and protect your business.
Tip #1: Clean it up
Although it can be tempting to ignore small graffiti tags or minor vandalism, this simply signals to the perpetrators that you don't care and that they can keep doing what they have been doing without repercussions. Instead, be proactive and clean up every bit of vandalism as soon as it occurs. Go a step further, even, and make sure that your business property is always in top condition – this means picking up garbage daily and trimming back landscaping plants neatly. As an added benefit, your business will look more inviting to customers and there won't be overgrown landscaping for vandals to hide in.
Tip #2: Install security lights
Security lights can illuminate otherwise dark areas around your property after hours. This alone can be discouraging to vandals, who usually want to operate anonymously under cover of darkness. If you are worried about the cost of leaving the lights on all night, you can also invest in motion controlled security lights.
Tip #3: Consider video surveillance
A security system that involves video surveillance can act as a deterrent to many petty criminals. The benefit is that you can use the camera to also collect evidence if the vandal decides to brave the camera and still do their dirty work. A prosecution of a vandal is usually enough to scare off the rest. You can even combine video monitoring services with your cameras, which means you will have a security firm there to call the police if they spot vandalism in action.
Tip #4: Lock and secure everything after hours
Common areas for exterior vandalism at businesses include alleyways and the sides of the buildings – areas that can't be seen easily by passers-by. One way to minimize vandalism in these areas is to gate them off and to lock the gates when you close for business. In extreme cases, you may even want to consider gating in the entire premises and then closing and locking the entrance gate each evening. In this case, hook the gates up to your security system so that an alarm will go off if the gates are forced open or breached. Your security company can help you decide on an alarm type. Visit http://johnsbrotherssecurity.com for more information.
Share26 July 2016
A couple of years ago, two men broke into three churches in my neighborhood one night. During their horrible escapade, they stole expensive cameras and musical instruments. They also committed thousands of dollars of vandalism damage at these three places of worship. After finding out about this unspeakable act, my whole community was shaken. Sadly, none of these churches had security systems on the night of this savage event. If you are the pastor of a place of worship, you should seriously consider installing a state-of-the-art security system at your church. On this blog, you will discover the best types of security systems to install at a place of worship.
