What You Can and Can’t Change in a Rental (Read Your Lease First)
I put in a request to the landlord before I moved into my first rental and he gave me his ok to paint the bedroom.
So I did, but nothing dramatic, just a soft grey that would fit in anywhere. I assumed his yes was a yes. In reality he meant yes on the condition I put it back to white when I went, a fact he only saw fit to bring up two years down the line as I was packing to leave.
He was standing in the doorway eyeing the grey wall with the kind of look I knew was prelude to a talk about my deposit.
I put it right. It was a weekend’s work. The grey showed through the first coat so I had to do it twice. When I was done I realised I had put more time and money into erasing it than the original job had been worth.
Then there was the matter of the heat in that apartment come summer. With the bedroom facing west you could hardly stand to be in it by afternoon. I had a wall unit put in, done properly, and it made all the difference. But moving out meant having it taken out and the wall plastered over.
The man doing the work came in at a price I didn’t anticipate and the landlord, after looking it over, wasn’t satisfied with the finish and held onto some of my deposit.
I even put in a word about taking down a wall to make one big room out of two small ones. He said no and he was well within his rights to do so. I get that, but for the rest of my tenancy I couldn’t help but wonder how it would have been without it.
In the end those three episodes were ”my education” in renting.
What is open to change, what you can alter if you are willing to put it back, and what is not negotiable.