Cleaning company comes to rescue in Manorhaven

Blue, painted graffiti that appeared on handicapped-accessible ramps in Manorhaven Village last week has been scrubbed away -- free of charge -- by a Minneapolis-based company.

Chris Delmonte, account manager for Graco-EcoQuip, said he and a colleague were in the area demonstrating products and saw news coverage of six ramps marked with "LBF," "LBF Spread The Movement," or "Live Breathe Futbol."

The co-founder of "Live Breathe Futbol," a soccer apparel company in Philadelphia, said the markings may have been the work of an overzealous fan.

Delmonte, who works out of a Chesapeake, Virginia, office, said officials for the company, which sells cleaning equipment, thought their equipment was well-suited for the task. They started Thursday evening and finished within a half-hour.

"What a quaint little village, and they've got this problem, and we've got the solution, and so we're up here," Delmonte said.

The machinery being used, which sells for $80,000, Delmonte said, is described as a vapor abrasive blaster. Village officials were hoping it would do what employee elbow grease couldn't.

Mayor Giovanna Giunta said 26 ramps were installed beginning in 2012 at a total cost of more than $26,000. "It's heartwarming that a business and communities across our nation come together to help each other," Giunta said Thursday.

The graffiti alarmed village officials, who have offered a $1,000 reward for information leading to an arrest. "I was completely disheartened," Giunta said. "I was appalled . . . and this administration will do everything in its power to capture those individuals or individual and see that they are punished to the fullest extent of the law."