Tips for Graffiti Removal

Jan. 12, 2010 - PRLog -- One fine summer evening in Glendale, California, I walked out the front door of my vintage red brick apartment building to find a kid spray painting on the side of it.  I looked at him; he looked at me.  “Oh, S___!” He said.  “Busted!”  Then he ran away.
   I approached.  I wanted it to be one of those big, artistic pieces, loaded with social meaning and cartoon characters.  Instead, it was an ugly, illegible black scrawl.  It was amateurish, hasty, and sloppy.  It stayed on the side of my apartment building for about three months, until the overworked manager finally got to it.
   Stupid kid!  I doubt even the members of his own gang could decipher that miserable secret message.  Of course, that didn’t stop the building from being tagged again in the next few months.
   TIP 1:  Performing your anti-graffiti in the first 48 hours greatly reduces the chances that the site will be vandalized again.  The “artists” want their work to be seen.  Removing it immediately takes away their motivation.
   TIP 2:  On a brick surface, the best way to remove graffiti is to power blast it with water, sand, or solvent.  This is very messy and may leave a shadow.  The second best option is to paint it over.  The third best is to apply a chemical graffiti remover with a paint brush, trying to dig in every crack and cranny.
   Here in fabulous Las Vegas, I’ve seen a lot of hasty spray paint on the windows of businesses, and on bathroom mirrors.  Usually it’s gone pretty fast… most business owners know that no one wants to enter a store with clear evidence of vandalism on the window.  The best way to get graffiti off of glass is paint thinner, a razor blade, and patience, lots of patience.  Unfortunately, even the most careful removal done this way can leave an ugly shadow.  Your only other option is to replace the whole pane of glass.
   TIP 3:  Here’s something I just discovered:  How to keep graffiti off of glass.  A film can be applied to your windows, offering the added benefits of UV protection and glare reduction.  If your storefront gets defaced, instead of laboriously chipping off paint, you can take off the film and replace it!  The same goes for mirrors.  Even if the vandal has scratched the anti-graffiti film, the glass underneath will stay intact.
   Anti-graffiti efforts in the United States cost $12 billion dollars annually.

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