Keep it clean. Keep it all clean. Let not a wind

Cleanliness of a neighborhood is a sign of economic stability and prosperity and pride.



Keep the hedges trimmed. Put fresh mulch by the flowers. Bathrooms should smell nice and fresh. Sidewalks should be free of mold (especially black mold) and stains. Streets shouldn't have oil drips on it.



This holds true for homes and it also holds true for businesses, as it also holds true for the entire community.



Collier County FL is a very clean community. From Vanderbilt Beach to Golden Gate Estates, 95% of Collier County is very clean and fresh. Every area has its exceptions, but they only serve to prove the rule! Even in its ugliest parts, Naples FL is more beautiful than many other places in the USA.



There's something that happens to a community when a little bit of overlooked unkeptness rapidly grows to overtake the community. It's called the "Broken Window Syndrome". I mention a little bit about it here: http://free.naplesplus.us/articles/view.php/6911/broken-window and http://free.naplesplus.us/articles/view.php/6917/broken-window-theory-explained



The gist of it is this:

Perhaps in a foreclosed (abandoned!) home, a window is broken.



Nobody pays any attention to the broken window.

Yet people drive by, walk by, every day. Kids play around there.



And the grass grows taller and the window stays broken. Bored kids break in through the broken window to see what they can see. Perhaps a homeless person crawls in to make a home. But that's not the main problem.



Before you know it another window is broken elsewhere. Nobody notices.

Then another.

Then a fence is broken. A sidewalk is cracked. Nobody pays it any mind.

Before you know it, there is graffitti. Property values plummet. Places are no longer selling, so they go for rent. But nobody is renting houses. So house is split up into rooms. One house has rooms for rent. Then another, then another.

Within a very short time (just a few years at most), the character of the neighborhood has changed.

All starting from a broken window that nobody paid any attention to.



Kenneth Udut

NeighborHelp Referrals' Affordable Trapping 239-465-9291

http://free.naplesplus.us/ - Collier County Electronic Village

P.S.
The first time I heard about Broken Window Syndrome was when I was looking into something called "self-organizing systems" ( it's related to chaos theory and complexity theory - I'm a science nut).



The short version of it is how a very small, seemingly insignificant thing is more powerful than it appears at first.



A rumor starts and spreads like wildfire until it culminates in someone getting fired from a job.

A few words spoken by a VP candidate ends up becoming fodder for Saturday Night Live and is all over the Internet and the news and spawns article after article.

A fear about a Depression spirals out of control and ends up CAUSING the very thing it feared!

This can also apply to good things. The whole "Pay-it-Forward" movement is based on that idea, as is the simple effect of making yourself say, "Good morning" to everybody in the office (whether you like them or not) - Good Will, while slower to move than Ill Will, is very powerful stuff.