I’m sure you’ve walked by a construction site or park and seen porta potties covered in graffiti. You may have also experienced people tipping over your porta potties or even lighting them on fire. These problems can make your construction site look bad, decrease productivity and cause you headaches. You might be asking yourself how to prevent this vandalism to your porta potties. First we’re going to walk you through the reasons why you should prevent vandalism to your porta potties, and then suggest the steps you can take to prevent it.
Why Should I Care About Vandalism to My Porta Potties?
So you might be thinking that vandalism to porta potties you’re renting might not be that big of a deal, right? This assumption can end up costing you a lot more than you think. There are so many reasons to prevent graffiti, tip overs and porta potty fires.
The most obvious reason to prevent vandalism on your porta potties is the esthetics of a restroom that has been tagged or written on. Usually this graffiti doesn’t consist of pleasant messages. If you have the general public using your porta potties, or just passing by, they might associate these messages with your company, park or event.
Vandalism to your porta potties can also cost you time and headaches. If your porta potties are burned down or tipped over, this could stop your workflow for a bit. You’ll have to wait for a service technician to come out and swap out the porta potty and maybe clean up a big mess.
The final cost to porta potty vandalism is a little more obvious. I’m talking about lawsuits. You might not think it, but graffiti on your porta potties is technically your responsibility. If there are offensive images or messages on your porta potties and you do nothing to remove or prevent it, you might have a lawsuit coming your way.
In a 1998 Chicago case the EEOC filing a complaint of sexual harassment against Foster Wheeler Construction Inc. This suit claimed that racist and sexist graffiti on Foster Wheeler’s construction project was harassment, and the company was found liable. At the end of the day the company paid out $1,325,000 to 100 former African-American and/or female employees. It could have all been avoided if Foster Wheeler took action against the vandalism happening on their jobsites.
How I Can Prevent Vandalism to Porta Potties?
Place Porta Potties in a Well Lit Area
If you’re trying to prevent vandalism to your porta potties on your construction site, park or public area, placing them in a well lit spot should be your first step. By placing your restrooms under a streetlight or near a lit building, it may help deter overnight vandalism. It’s a simple step that you can take to prevent headaches in the future.
Place Porta Potties Near Surveillance Cameras
Surveillance cameras are a great way to prevent theft, vandalism and break-ins on your job site, in your public parks and around your business. So why not place your porta potty rentals in the sight of these cameras.
This way, if you have a pattern of graffiti, constant tip-overs or destruction of your porta potty, you’ll have video proof of the culprit. Placing your portable restrooms near surveillance cameras will also help monitor vandalism happening at the hands of your own employees.
Fence In Your Job Site
When you’re planning your construction site, you may want to consider putting up fencing around the site perimeter. Fencing can help prevent the theft of your construction equipment and also stop destruction of your work. Fencing can also help prevent vandalism of your porta potties. Most vandalism takes place on construction sites overnight. By fencing in your construction site, you’re preventing people from easily accessing porta potties after hours.
Lock Your Porta Potties Overnight
So let’s say you don’t have the option to fence in your entire jobsite, but you’ve been having issues with people vandalizing the interior of your porta potties. If this is the case consider locking your porta potties overnight. This doesn’t solve the problem of your workers getting creative on the restroom walls, but it can help reduce people tagging your restroom’s interiors when you’re not around.
Stake Your Porta Potties Downs
If tip-overs are your major concern, then properly staking down your porta potties may be an easy solution. There are several ways to stake down your restrooms such as chaining them to a stable object and securing the restrooms skids to the ground. This will make it much more difficult for pranksters to tip over your porta potties.
Talking to Your Employees
Vandalism to your porta potties isn’t always caused by random people visiting your construction site or park. Sometimes it’s your own employees that are doing the damage. Workers can use things like sharpies and pens to write some pretty offensive things on the inside of your restrooms. If this is what you’re most concerned about, consider having a frank discussion with your employees.
Let them know that the porta potties on your job site need to be used by everyone, and they should be more respectful. Also, remind them that the portable restrooms on their job site are someone else’s property. Portable restrooms are pieces of equipment that have to be maintained by the company that owns them, and restroom service technicians need to keep them clean. These restrooms are someone’s livelihood and should be treated with respect. Putting their actions into context may help them reduce the amount of graffiti inside your porta potties.
Whether you’re dealing with graffiti, tip overs, or burned down porta potties, there is plenty you can do to prevent vandalism to your restrooms. From placing them in well lit or monitored areas, or securing them to the ground or structure, you can do a lot to help save yourself time and grief. By taking these precautions you could also save yourself money and possibly a lawsuit.
On Site Companies is a portable restroom provider for the St. Paul / Minneapolis, Rochester and Mankato, MN areas as well as St. Louis, MO. We can provide you with standard porta potties, as well as luxury restroom trailers. If you have any further questions about renting porta potties, or have questions about your existing restroom rentals, you can give us a call at 1.800.210.8407 or email us at sales@onsiteco.com
