Top 5 Mistakes Made by Tenants

P1050916Renting a property is a big responsibility, and it’s important to be a considerate tenant both to your neighbours and your landlord. Sometimes things happen that are genuine accidents like locking yourself out, but things such as burning carpets or countertops or incorrectly giving your notice can be prevented with a little foresight. Below, are the Top 5 mistakes tenants make.

Locking yourself out / loosing your keys

 Mainly locking yourself out. This is often caused by Nightlatch locks; ones with a Yale key.
It can also be caused by internal fire doors with fire door closers and Nightlatch or similar locks. Often times a fire door will automatically shut and your keys have been left in your room/flat. If you will be opening and closing doors around your flat such as moving things or bringing in groceries that require multiple trips, it’s a good idea to keep your keys on you to prevent getting locked out.

 Using the carpet (and sometimes kitchen worktop) as an ironing board.

A towel is placed on the carpet and whilst ironing your clothes the heat melts the carpet. Worse still if you do this in the centre of a brand new carpet as the whole carpet will have to be replaced. Burns can also happen on kitchen worktops when ironing on a towel, either by the heat getting through the towel and discolouring it, or a hot iron being placed on the worktop and burning it. If you don’t have room for a large ironing board, small table top ironing boards are perfect, they will give you the lift off your surfaces so no heat gets through, and are easy to store.

Incorrect notice.

If you are thinking of moving out, make sure you check the minimum term of a periodic Tenancy first, then write your notice in good time, putting the date your notice starts and date it finishes. You cannot back date notice if you miss the start date/point.

Missing your black bin day.

This is bad since you have to wait 2 further weeks until the next bin day. It often happens in multi let/shared properties. If you are in a shared property, come up with a system where either people share in the responsibility, or one person is responsible for taking the bin out while others are responsible for other chores. This way you can ensure your bins get put out so you don’t have rubbish piling up.

Noise.

This is one of the worst offences as you are pushing your life onto someone else who is most likely not interested. A bit like someone wanting others to appreciate their music by opening their window to aid this process. Noise is caused by inconsiderate Tenants, so take your neighbours into consideration while playing your music or having loud parties. You also need to think about how noise will effect your neighbours if you have adjoining walls. Try putting your tv on a non-adjoining wall for example if you like to have loud movies playing. Bonus tip… make sure your accommodation is soundproofed before agreeing to rent if you know you like to play loud music or have the tv on a lot.