Graffiti Removal
If your property has been the victim of graffiti damage, don’t bury your head in the sand. It’s important that you act quickly to limit the effects – not only do paints and other wet mediums become harder to remove with age, the prolonged presence of graffiti encourages others to ‘tag’ or use your property for the display of other ‘art’. There is some evidence, albeit anecdotal, that levels of crime increase in areas where graffiti and other forms of petty destruction to property are not addressed.
In the Event of a Graffiti Attack
Before thinking about graffiti removal, you should first properly log the attack.
Make notes on the particular areas that have been attacked and the type of media used (paints, markers, ball-point pens).
Take photographs. If this is not possible, make a sketch of the graffiti damage.
Call the police and have them visit your property to observe the damage. Make sure you get a crime number. Also, check with your Insurer to see whether cover exists under your home insurance policy.
General Advice on Graffiti Removal
We always recommend that you speak to a graffiti removal specialist, such as ourselves, before proceeding further, even if you feel the extent of the damage is sufficiently minor to consider removing the graffiti yourself. If you are the owner of a listed property, you may need to seek consent before any proposed cleaning can go ahead.
As with general stone cleaning, there are a number of issues to consider;
- the kind of medium used to deface the surface
- the type and condition of the façade
- the size of the affected area
- the properties of specific products designed for graffiti removal and the likely outcome of any treatment.
We should make it clear that it is not always possible to guarantee that graffiti removal will be completely successful. Also, bear in mind that any area where graffiti is successfully removed may stand out from surrounding surfaces that have not been cleaned. Where this is likely to occur and aesthetics are important, more widespread cleaning, of a whole elevation for example, may be a costlier but more appropriate solution than localised cleaning.
For commercial buildings and those that are not are not of historical importance, it may be worth investing in an anti-graffiti coating which will protect the façade from damage in the case of repeated attacks and allow for far easier graffiti removal. However, it is worth noting that such coatings need to be removed and reapplied each year.
This page belongs to our Stone Restoration & Conservation section.
