Imagine arriving at your restaurant, shop, apartment complex or commercial office building to find graffiti sprayed across the front window or other destruction to your property?

Think that vandalism can’t happen to you? Think again.

According to crime reports, there were over 200 vandalism crimes reported in Miami Florida over the past two months. That means over 200 business and home owners were faced with cleaning up the mess left by the vandals and trying to figure out how to file an insurance claim to cover the property damage and clean-up effort.

Today, our guest blogger gives us some good advice for preventing vandalism and minimizing the losses it can cause:

Protect Your Business and Bottom Line From the Effects of Vandalism

Each year Graffiti, ‘scratch-iti’, and other forms of property vandalism cost Americans an estimated $8 billion in removal and clean-up in the form of taxes, private funds, and insurance premiums. That’s a big gouge to your bottom line that doesn’t even account for a loss of customer traffic as a result of poor business image.

The fact remains that in some areas, acts of vandalism can be avoided by using a common sense approach such as better lighting, or close monitoring of property by security guards. In other areas, vandalism may be inevitable but the damage doesn’t have to be expensive to remove!

Acts of vandalism often signal a community’s descent into economic despair; the presence of graffiti invites further malicious and antisocial behavior, escalates crime rates, and keeps paying customers away! There’s nothing quite like the presence of graffiti to make your clients feel uncomfortable and unsafe while visiting your place of business.

No one wants to dine or shop in a graffiti-ridden community! Customer perception is a vital aspect of your business. Vandalism and the presence of graffiti can destroy your business’s reputation by creating a negative image of your shop or store front. Former loyal customers will search for safer areas in which to shop, dine, and spend time with their families. In essence, graffiti not only mars your windows; it mars your community, your business, and can significantly reduce traffic and sales.

Work Together: A great place to start is by working with other businesses in your community to monitor activities. Report anything suspicious immediately to local law enforcement. The key is to create an environment where criminals know they’re likely to be spotted and they’ll soon move on to easier targets. A strong community presence is the number one deterrent for most criminals, especially criminal activity such as vandalism. Would-be criminals avoid active communities full of watchful eyes!

Diligence in Clean-Up Efforts: Next, it’s crucial that all graffiti in a community be cleaned up “as it happens”. Graffiti begets more graffiti and even other destructive or criminal behavior. Business owners should maintain store fronts, cleaning up any tagging or destruction as soon as possible.

Window Protection: Sadly, even in the most guarded and clean community, vandals can find an opportune moment to wreak havoc on store fronts and shop windows. Clean-up can be very costly. In these cases, store owners should consider peel-and-stick window films such as ScratchGARD. These security films offer an easy-to-use, affordable solution to costly paint and window repairs.

Peel-and-stick window films that adhere to the exterior of all smooth glass or stone surfaces provide an easy-to-remove barrier between costly glass and the vandals looking to destroy it. Regardless of the type of attack on your windows, glass, or stone surfaces, this window film will effectively and affordably restore the pristine image of a commercial property, ensuring a quick return to business as usual.

The key is to gain the upper hand over vandals and keep it that way. By maintaining a watchful presence in your community, cleaning up after any graffiti has occurred, and protecting windows with anti-graffiti films like ScratchGARD you can reduce the costs associated with graffiti and maintain the aesthetics of your business and community that will ensure your business will continue to thrive.

About the Author: Mr. Jordan Frankel is a respected security professional and founder of Global Security Experts, sole distributor for ShatterGARD automotive protective films. ShatterGARD products are trusted to protect the men and women of the U.S. military as well as the law enforcement community. For more information on how VehicleGARD can protect your car from thieves and vandals, visit www.shattergard.com or call 888-306-7998-14.

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If you’re dealing with vandalism on your commercial property or home, please consider having All Lines Public Adjusters offer you claim help. We can asses the damage, estimate the costs to clean it up and file an insurance claim with your provider.

Even if you have already filed an insurance claim and have received your payment, we may be able to offer you additional claim help through an “insurance adjustment” – which simply means adjusting the claim you already filed.

Files processed with the help of public adjuster are statistically proven to pay more than those submitted without a public adjuster – as much as 700 times more. So, it’s well worth the time to talk to us to see if we can recover more for you.

Contact Scott Davis at 305-898-3626

Article Resources:

• http://www.spotcrime.com/fl/miami
• Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/adnmontalvo/720157402/