It’s HOT! and not just the temperature, business is hot. The kids are back in school, but business is still booming for us.

During the summer, we get a lot of our business from summer concert, fairs, sporting events, festivals and other fun events that help make summer - summer.

Here are just a few of the places we could be seen this week: Alameda, Oakland, Treasure Island, Hollister,Del Monte Golf Course, Berkeley and Ft. Mason.

Business continues to boom to the point where we needed to get another new truck. With service yards in Pleasanton and Gilroy, we needed more wheels to get the job done.

We’re having a lot of fun growing this business and meeting our clients’ needs. Give us a call we can help you with temporary fencing and portable toilets in the following communities:  Alameda, Albany, Berkeley, Brisbane, Burlingame, Cupertino, Daly City, Danville, Dublin, Emeryville, Foster City, Fremont,Gilroy, Hayward, Castro Valley, Livermore, Los Altos, Los Gatos, Menlo Park, Millbrae, Milpitas, Mountain View, Oakland, Pacifica, Pleasanton, Redwood City, Richmond, San Bruno, San Jose, San Francisco, San Leandro, San Mateo, San Ramon, Santa Clara, Saratoga, South San Francisco, Sunnyvale, Union City, Walnut Creek, and Watsonville.

Portable Toilet News You Don’t Want to Miss

Tampa, Florida (The Weekly Vice) — Lorenzo Earl Knight, a 22-year-old Florida man was arrested on burglary and theft charges after police say he broke into a vehicle and then hid in a nearby portable toilet. Before police arrived however, Mr. Knight discovered why a port-a-potty is the last place a burglar wants to hide.

Investigators say the incident began when Lorenzo Knight broke into a 1999 Ford F-150 in a mall parking lot Saturday and allegedly stole a $500 digital camera along with it’s owner’s manual.

Knight was attempting to break into a 2nd truck, when the automobile’s owner and a friend spotted him and gave chase, according to the police report.

Knight fled the scene to a nearby construction site and attempted to hide in a portable toilet that was also on the site. The truck’s owner and his friend soon caught up to Knight and tipped the portable toilet over, trapping Knight inside the toilet until police could arrive.

When officers arrived, they found Knight still inside the toilet, soaking wet in the toilet’s contents. Authorities also recovered a screwdriver that Knight used to jimmy the truck’s lock and a shoe he left at the scene, according to Tampa Police.

Knight was arrested on the “spot” and charged with two counts of burglary and one count of grand theft. He was booked into the Orient Road Jail and then released Sunday morning after posting a $6,000 bond.

With the recent growth of our business that provides the temporary fencing and portable restrooms to special events and construction sites, we decided to open an location in Pleasanton.  I personally wanted to have a location in the bay area for some time.  It will allows us to answer their needs of our customers in a timely manner and it will finially allow me me to work in my community.  It is very exciting for us and I can already tell that our business is going to benefit directly from this new location.

We have watched fuel costs double and the driving times increase during the peak hours, which can make it difficult to be on time if the customer has requested us to be there at 7am.  Additionally, we find that we service our customers each week and it becomes critical to be within a 30-40 mile radius to meet their expectations.  I have quicky learned that telling someone you will be there to help them in 30 minutes or less can make them a life long customer.  We look forward to being a part of Pleasanton!

When Disaster Strikes - Portable Toilets are Needed

The recent fires in California remind me of how portable toilets are one of the key resources needed in disaster situations. Whether it is California wildfires, an earthquake, a mudslide, flood or even a typhoon - when disaster strikes, sanitation is a major concern.

In such situations, we have hundreds of single portable toilet units available. Our VIP Temporary Restrooms are mounted on trailers for portability and convenience. They’re solar powered and can be delivered to the front lines for emergency crews.

Clean drinking water is also a concern in disaster situations. Our potable water tanks fill that need.

A couple of other situations that may require a portable toilet or temporary restroom.

• Bathroom Remodel
• Family Reunions

Portable Toilet Art

No post on portable toilets would be complete without a picture of graffiti artist, Banksy’s - Stonehenge made of - you guessed it - portable toilets!

I’ll bet most people don’t track news about portable toilets, but when you’re in the portable toilet and temporary restroom business, you need to stop every now and then to smell the roses! Providing temporary site services throughout the San Francisco Bay Area to communities like San Jose, Oakland, Berkeley and San Francisco can be challenging at times, but some of the stories in the news about portable toilets this week made me thankful for small blessings.

There were about 200 mentions of portable toilets this past week on blog postings. Isn’t that wild??!!! Most of them are posts about local events mentioning that portable toilets will be available at the event. From rock concerts and political rallies to boy scout jamborees - where you find people, you need to find toilets.

Here are a few of the portable toilet stories I came across:

• From South Africa - Portable Toilets being used to threaten the poor
• Up in Washington - Teens arrested for blowing up portable toilets
• In Brooklyn - Thieves beat up a guard and stuff him in a toilet
• In Rancho Cordova - Portable toilet fire destroys little league equipment

We are in the midst of our busiest summer. This year we added over 100 portable toilets to our inventory and we could probably use 100 more. Our temporary VIP restrooms are getting us a lot of positive feedback from clients.

We are working 7 days a week now to meet the demand. Customer service and satisfaction are always at the top of our list.

The summer of 2008 is turning into a summer of challenges in the temporary fencing & portable toilet business for us at Hanson & Fitch.

First the good news!

Business is booming. We are working 7 days a week to service demand from our clients. Some of our competitors have gone out of business or downscaled their business as a result of the ripple effect in the construction industry. This coupled with the success of our marketing efforts has helped our business to explode.

The bad news is, of course, GAS PRICES. Soaring fuel prices are hurting everyone and we are no exception. We are endeavoring to keep our prices stable. We are not planning on charging for checked baggage, but some adjustments may need to be made.

We remain committed to providing the best temporary site services at competitive and reasonable rates. Our clients are our business!

On the lighter side of the portable toilet business -

• Pa. Crews Rescue Nude Man Stuck In Portable Potty
• Man naps in portalet
• Fox’s Smith: People who get stuck in toilets are ‘a little crazy

I was talking with one of our long time customers, Shawn Casey at the Pebble Beach Company. We were discussing some of the additional site services we were adding, as we try to do with our customers from time to time.

I explained that we are now offering portable toilets with weekly service in the area and that we were trying hard to grow this new business. Shawn listened and responded with,”We currently have a portable toilet on a trailer and would consider changing to you guys, since we know you will do a good job and the products are brand new”.

I quickly told Shawn that it would be great and that we would get back to him ASAP.

The toilets are no problem, but the trailer was going to need to be a perfect fit for this kind of application. Believe it or not the trailer needs to be stable not just on the back of the truck, but more importanly when someone is inside and the trailer is not connected to the truck.

We found a great fit and our toilet is “getting a set of wheels” as we speak. the trailer is a bright red in color and is licensed by the Department of Transportation and is street legal.

We thank Shawn for his business and look forward to seeing more toilets on trailers in the near future.

Hanson & Fitch installs GPS units in portable toilets

The iButton is a computer chip enclosed in a 16mm thick stainless steel can. it is unique and durable and can travel with a person or object anywhere they go. The steel iButton can be mounted virtually anywhere because it is rugged enough to withstand harsh environments, indoors or outdoors. It is small and portable enough to attach to a key fob, ring, watch, or other personal items, and be used daily for applications such as access control to buildings and computers, asset management, and various data logging tasks.

This technology has allowed us to grow on top of a platform that is smart business. It allows us to do inventory control, distribution of product and services, and control over billing. We can grow as large as we want and still manage to see the details that each customer sees on their respective job site and or event.

This will save the company thousands of dollars a year. The whole system is digitized now - we know where they are at all times and it is all integrated into our billing system.

Temporary Fencing and Toilets isn’t what many would consider a sexy business, but it’s a solid, stable business and with all the construction, our temporary fence panels and portable toilets are always in demand.

We just recently added portable toilets to our temporary services because it seemed like more often than not on most job sites there was a problem for the client with coordinating the delivery of fencing and toilets. This detail would probably seem insignificant to the average person, but for event coordinators or construction site foremen it is a major fly in the ointment.

We at Hanson & Fitch are dedicated to growing our business into the best temporary services company in the San Francisco Bay area. When we say best we mean quality - in product and service.

We will be using this blog to showcase our products, job sites and events throughout the Bay area as a means of familiarizing our potential clients with our temporary fencing and portable toilets. But more than that, we want this to be an open forum where we can acknowledge our clients and invite their feedback to help us achieve our goals of best in product and service.

Temporary Fence & Portable Toilets - not something you ever think about until you need them!