Every property owner and manager knows how frustrating it is to complete a beautiful new paint job, only for the finished product to be tarnished by unsightly graffiti.
Tagging is prevalent in many neighbourhoods, but luckily communities are beginning to work together to combat the vandalism. You can form or join your own neighbourhood support group to discuss taking action against tagging, and perhaps hold a community paint-out to target graffiti-affected areas all at once.
If you come across a vandal in action, you can ring the police and report the crime. It's great if you can provide them with details of the offender, the time and location of the offence and photographs of the tag.
If the tagger is still in action, try not to alert them to your actions as this means the police will have a greater chance of apprehending them.
If you find graffiti on or around your property, try to remove graffiti within 24 hours of it appearing. You don't need to repaint the whole surface, simply the patch that has been vandalised. This usually helps to deter those causing graffiti and they will move onto another area where the graffiti lasts longer.
If you fall victim to repeat vandalism, consider coating the affected area in an anti-graffiti system, such as Resene Uracryl GraffitiShield. Resene Uracryl GraffitiShield will provide a low-odour, low-VOC defence against graffiti for years, as it's a high performance coating system.
A Resene Uracryl coating will allow you to clean away graffiti quickly with Resene Graffiti Cleaner without damaging the finish of the paint. Resene Graffiti Cleaner is highly effective against graffiti materials like spray paint, inks and crayons.
You can also use Resene TagCover, which is a custom made range of waterborne satin paints. The range is formulated to be a budget-friendly paint system to cover graffiti, and is available in 10L pails.
Many community groups also suffer from graffiti. Resene PaintWise donates free 100% recycled paint to community groups to cover unwanted graffiti – simply apply online.
See Dealing with graffiti for more ideas to tackle graffiti problems.
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