Vandalism, Theft Reduced With Right Fixtures and Products

Building managers and building service contractors know it can be incredibly difficult to keep restrooms looking clean and adequately stocked, especially in high-traffic public buildings. In facilities such as stadiums and retail shopping centers, restrooms attract vandals who cover walls with graffiti, use paper to overflow toilets and sinks, or walk away with toilet paper rolls in backpacks or soap bottles in purses.

No cleaning staff has time to monitor restrooms 24/7, but using the right products and scheduling at least one extra cleaning per day can make a big difference in deterring vandalism and theft.

Vandalism

At high-traffic venues, especially those where alcohol is served, restrooms can be atrocious when patron clog fixtures with trash or paper towels. For example, Albuquerque, N.M.-based SMI Facility Services cleans a problematic baseball stadium.

“[Restrooms] can be a nightmare especially when you’ve got beer cups and little ice cream helmets stuffed down urinals and toilets,” says Steve Garcia, vice president of SMI. “What we do is use screens on the urinals so it protects any items from going down into the neck of the urinal.”

Screens are one solution; touch-free flush valves are another. To flood a restroom, vandals would have to flush a toilet or urinal 10 to 20 times in a row. By making fixtures touch-free, vandals are less likely to wait around long enough to cause significant damage.

Deliberately clogged sinks are a less frequent problem because they’re out in the open and not within the privacy of a stall. However, touch-free faucets will lessen the possibility of flooding, says Margie Richardson, executive vice president of Midwest Maintenance Co., Omaha, Neb. By installing touchless faucets, vandals would not be able to simply turn the handle and walk out of the restroom. Instead, they would have to keep their hand near the faucet to keep water running.

Another way to prevent clogged and overflowing fixtures is to make acts of vandalism less tempting. Installing touch-free paper dispensers will deter vandals because they’re unlikely to continually wave their hands in front of the dispenser just to get a few inches of toweling each time, says Garcia.

Or, hand dryers remove the problem of paper towels altogether.

Theft

Restrooms in which extra supplies are left out in the open are asking for trouble. Single rolls of toilet paper placed on the backs of toilets are cited as the most commonly stolen item. Baskets of paper towels may look appealing and inviting, but these, too, are easy targets for thieves.

Paper products should be kept in sturdy, locked dispensers, says Philip Jansen, president of Southwest Cleaning in Lubbock, Texas. The more heavy-duty the construction and installation of a fixture, the harder it is for people to break it, kick it off a wall or steal supplies from it. Plastic dispensers are easily broken. For facilities in which theft and vandalism are of concern, stainless steel dispensers make the most difference.

“Paper manufactures are really getting innovative,” says Garcia. “We try to use dispensers like stainless steel ones with a bolt in the middle or a key lock not easily picked.”

For extra reinforcement, metal attachments can be added as dispenser covers, says Garcia. Since the covers are not very aesthetically pleasing they are best reserved for locations such rest stops or stadiums and not standard office restrooms.

BSCs should hire day porters to refill dispensers or invest in high-capacity dispensers in order to avoid leaving extra paper products unattended in plain sight. An added bonus: products designed for high-capacity dispensers are often larger themselves, making them difficult to steal. For example, toilet paper rolls could be as large as 12 inches in diameter.

“It’s harder to stick it in a purse or backpack and actually take it out of the facility,” Garcia says. “They’re a lot harder to steal so it’s a deterrent.”

Paper products may go missing most often, but nothing is realistically safe. Cleaning staffs should keep feminine hygiene product dispensers locked at all times. Soap dispensers should be mounted to counters or walls. Aside from small, commercial office buildings (where vandalism isn’t common) individual pump-bottle soap dispensers are almost guaranteed to get swiped and they’re not cost effective, says Garcia.

Even odor control dispensers are targets for vandals.

“We’ve seen people actually rip them off the wall,” says Bob Armbruster, president of Clean Team Inc., Toledo, Ohio. “They use C and D batteries, so it’s worthwhile for someone to grab them, I guess.”

To help prevent theft, place units behind a door or above ceiling light boxes so they’re not the first items seen when walking into a restroom, says Garcia.

Schedule a day porter

The quicker vandalized items are fixed or removed and the faster stolen items are replaced, the stronger the message to the original vandal or thief, as well as to others considering it, that such behavior isn’t tolerated.

“The biggest thing with vandalism is cleaning it up as soon as possible because if [vandals] feel their results are long-lasting, that’s encouraging to them,” Jansen says. “If the restroom is cleaner, people come to treat it with more respect.”

Since most facilities aren’t cleaned until nighttime, vandalism can linger for hours. Scheduling midday cleaning by a day porter can ensure that problems are addressed immediately.

“If you don’t clean it up as soon as possible, other people do it, like a domino effect,” says Richardson.

Having a day porter means restrooms need to hold fewer supplies and therefore fewer supplies are there to get stolen or aid in vandalism. Day porters may also be able to catch a vandal in the act. For example, at one of Clean Team’s accounts, a day porter pinpointed the time toilet paper was disappearing from a certain restroom.

“He had a security person sitting in the lobby who found the guy with a backpack and removed him from the building,” says Armbruster.

Restrooms in high-traffic facilities will always be targets for vandalism, but installing high-capacity dispensers or touch-free fixtures can go a long way in preventing damage or stolen supplies. These new products, mixed with routine cleaning, will show vandals that their destructive behavior is not tolerated.

Lindsay Fiori is a freelance writer based in Racine, Wis.