Renting blog: Can tenants love thy neighbour, asks Jeannie
July 29, 2011 at 9:39 AM Lawrence Hall 1 comment
This is a legacy post from the findaproperty.com blog which is now maintained as an archive within the Zoopla blog. Links have been preserved.
It’s one thing homeowners dread –living next door to tenants. Because they don’t own their property there’s this misconception that people who rent don’t care about maintenance, noise levels or being on friendly terms with their neighbours as they’re not committed to any permanence in the ‘hood.
With this in mind I’ve tried to be a good tenant-neighbour. I chat to the people living behind us about the weather when they see me get home from work (they even gave me a barbecue they didn’t want anymore), I try to keep the outside of our house clean and tidy – I’ve planted pansies in the window box after admiring the roses in the garden on the left of us and for the most part adhere to the 10.30pm noise curfew, shushing friends after a late-night dinner party.
Occasionally there have been a few lapses. We’ve had complaints for being too loud outdoors, letters through the door about putting the wrong refuse in the recycling bin and, of course, the issue of parking where we’re not supposed to.
So I was rather anxious when approaching the house one Friday night to hear music blaring, the front door open and a lot of noise on the patio. My housemate had decided to have party. Oh dear, I thought, we’ll be getting another note in our letterbox in the morning.
To my surprise, who should I find in the living room, but the people living next door! It seems my housemate had taken good neighbourly relations a step further than I had.
Now let’s just hope those nice people behind us don’t have reason to complain – I might just have to invite them round for a barbecue…
Entry filed under: Diaries, Diary of a Renter. Tags: diary of a renter, Flatshare, house share, Jeannie's blog, letting, renting, Tenants.
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sam | July 30, 2011 at 12:09 PM
Yes – good tenants do exist! I have recently put a house on the market which is tenanted and the current tenant has lived there 4 years. I felt dreadful that we are now selling the property, but she has been more than understanding and more than helpful.
When I saw the marketing pictures that the estate agent had done I felt sooo guilty – the tenant’s presentation of her home is even nicer than what I could have done as the owner. So much so I even had second thoughts about selling it!