One of our property management clients needed some graffiti removal at a small neighborhood park.

Graffiti Removal On Playground Equipment

The property manager got a call from an HOA (home owners association) member saying they had a bunch of graffiti tags on and around the playground equipment.

This is a good example of the many different kinds of graffiti removal needed. And this time it was all in one place.

There was black and red spray paint on the plastic playground equipment. And there was felt tip pen with silly sayings in some places, too.

An amateur had tried some graffiti removal by painting over the tags.

While this paint was better than the graffiti it covered up, it still made the park look rundown. It needed to be removed to restore the look of the area.

Graffiti Removal - The Wrong Way

All these different kinds of graffiti, while on the same surface, often take different materials and procedures to remove.

Removing ink from a felt tip pen isn’t the same procedure as removing spray paint. And removing graffiti from metal and brick is different from the graffiti removal on this plastic swing-set.

But sometimes even different colors of the same brand of paint take different procedures to remove. And no, we’re not saying which ones are more difficult. We’re not going to provide helpful tips to the kiddies so their silly tags are harder to remove.

This is a nice little park in a suburban neighborhood, not a dirty downtown city park. It’s the kind of place you would think the kids would feel was their own and be less likely to vandalize. But that’s probably why they want their messages there – so their friends would see them. Who knows – why anyone thinks graffiti is a worthwhile use of their time is beyond reason.

And the biggest problems with graffiti removal is that it often comes back.

Graffiti Removal In A Suburban Neighborhood Park

But if it isn’t kept up, the park itself and the surrounding areas quickly start to look trashy like no one cares.

Then property values start to fall. Most people shy away from the sight of graffiti and are less likely to buy from stores that are tagged, much less buy a home in that area.

Graffiti removal isn’t cheap.

The equipment and materials to do it correctly are expensive. But it will cost more in the long run if you leave it there.

The best recommendation is to remove it quickly. Once the taggers realize their hard work isn’t going to stay around long enough to be seen, they’ll move on.

We once removed a large tag from the back of a recreation center and the taggers put it back on the same night. But when we were called back the next morning to remove it again, they never came back.

So getting your graffiti removal done quickly –

– by someone who knows how to do it right – is the best solution in the long run.