Taking Care of your Home

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.