5 Reasons You Need to Get Your Parking Lot Swept

A parking lot is the gateway to your business, the first place your customers see when visiting. As a business owner, it may be the last thing on your mind, but keeping your lot clean and looking great isn’t something you want to overlook. There are 5 compelling reasons why keeping a well-maintained lot is good for business; it discourages littering, it keeps rodents and other pests away, it will prolong the life of your pavement, it limits pollution and it increases your business’s curb appeal.

Discourage Littering in Your Lot

According to California State social psychologist, Professor Wesley Schultz, “The presence of existing litter was strongly predictive of littering behavior. So, if you’re in a place that’s already highly littered, you’re much more likely to litter than if you’re in a place that’s clean or free of litter.” Interestingly, if you take care of your lot, other people will too, and if you don’t you are giving people the green light to treat it poorly as well.

Keep Pests Away

Rodents and other pests are attracted to places that can provide food and shelter, like a messy parking lot (especially if you have dumpsters in or around your lot). There are a number of reasons that you don’t want rats or mice around your business; rodents are carriers of disease, carry ticks and other parasites that also carry disease, are attracted to warm places and may invade your building, can destroy your property and will leave droppings, making your business unsanitary, and are off putting to potential customers. Regular maintenance and sweeping will clear out any potential debris that attracts rodents, keeping your business pest free.

Prolong the Life of Your Pavement

Corrosive or hard solid debris can end up causing pavement to break down or crack. Anything from rocks to brake rotor dust gets ground into the pavement by passing cars, eroding away the asphalt in your lot. This is further exacerbated by freeze/ thaw cycles, leading to potholes and pricey repairs. As we’ve seen many times in the streets of Portland, filling potholes is a pretty ineffective and very temporary solution, and repaving the entire lot is very expensive. Keeping a clean lot from the start with regular sweeping and maintenance can save you lots of money by avoiding costly repairs.

Keep Your Environmental Impact at a Minimum

Street and lot runoff from rain or other water goes directly into the storm drain that goes into our rivers and oceans. By sweeping and cleaning your lots on a regular basis, you are keeping all of that trash and debris out of our water systems. All kinds of different pollutants can collect in your lots, like motor oil, coolant, tire debris, brake dust, gasoline, transmission fluid, brake fluid, plastic, trash, animal carcasses, pesticides, etc. These are definitely things we don’t want polluting the water that we rely on.

Increase Your Business’s Curb Appeal

Probably the most important thing to think about for your business is how potential customers perceive it. Your parking lot is the first experience that customers have with your business and a clean and well-maintained lot will give a great first impression. With the immense competition that most industries have in today’s economic environment, potential customers have lots of choices and even something like a pothole or a smelly lot can send them to your competition. Show potential customers that you take your business seriously and present yourself as a professional.

If you want to get your lot cleaned, but don’t have the time, call SNUGS and they’ll get the job done right without the inconvenience of doing it yourself. When it comes to cleaning parking lots, removing the cars is the biggest challenge. No matter how it’s organized, not being able to park in the lot is an inconvenience to the tenants and patrons of your business. Snugs can minimize this inconvenience through many different methods.

Snugs Pro Wash, Inc, dba SNUGS Services, has been providing high quality Pressure Washing Services in Portland, OR since 1995. Started as a residential pressure washing and roof cleaning service, SNUGS is now one of the leading exterior cleaning companies in the Northwest. From our humble beginnings as a man with a truck and a trailer we have grown to become a multi-million dollar company serving corporate customers, name brands, and mom and pop companies alike.

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