Make sure you take care of your home – it could end up costing you if you don’t look after it. Here are some tips to help you avoid any conflict with your landlord –
Essentially
- Respect the property as if it were your own home.
- Keep it clean and tidy.
- Live in a tenant-like manner which means taking proper care of the property.
‘Fair wear and tear’ is a phrase used to measure the natural degradation of properties during normal usage. Living in a tenant-like manner means that carpets, furniture etc will be subject to fair wear and tear, i.e. that no more natural degradation than expected from having a family with the comparable amount of people living in the property occurs.
Help by:
- Ensuring that things do not get damaged through misuse or neglect.
- Taking shoes off or wiping them when you enter the house.
- Not sitting on sofas in dirty sports gear.
- Cleaning the house on a regular basis.
- Vacuuming the carpet/removing dirt on a regular basis.
- Attending to minor repairs: replace bulbs, replace batteries for fire alarms, tightening a loose handle, unblocking the sink/bath/toilet. Fixing damage caused by you or guests.
- Unlike in halls of residences your landlord is not going to come down to screw in a light bulb or other minor repairs.
- Immediately report maintenance problems to the landlord or agent. Give specific details of the problem, the room or location that this is relevant to, and leave your contact details.
- Dispose of refuse correctly.
- Look after the exterior of the property e.g. cut weeds/long grass.
