Cheap Effective (Rental) Home Improvements

Chaos_Monkey

Spikey - it works both ways! If our tenant was decent, we'd love for him to stay on. But he's not!

TBH, if we could, we'd sell our UK house in a shot as it's more hassle than it's worth. The rent doesn't cover the mortgage, although it's more evenly balanced now that we've paid chunks off the mortgage and therefore reduced the monthly payments. But it's still costing us money for someone else to live in the house (even when they DO pay rent!).

kunekune - We try to be 'good' tenants, although I dare say we're not the tidiest, but then again, when the house is handed back, it'll be in a cleaner state than when we took it over and we don't make that many requests of the LL. Getting info out of the Agent is like getting blood out of a stone, but that's another story! We do like it in this current house, and I get the impression our LL would be happy for us to stay on, but we have a terribly noisy/inconsiderate neighbour and also I'm expecting our first baby next year so we're going to have to move on at some point sooner than we'd initially planned (however, if the neighbour moves out, this would be much less urgent and we'd manage space-wise!).

I just don't understand people who don't just look after the places they're renting - surely it makes their lives nicer if they do?

Back on topic - this winter I ran draught excluder tape all around our rather gappy outer door frames and that made a difference. And in a previous flat, DH screwed one of those brush draught excluders (the tape ones weren't deep enough to make a difference) to the front door and that made a huge difference. I didn't get around to making the 'door snake' excluders though...maybe next year! Now, if anyone has any suggestions on how to 'heat proof' our rental here to avoid the dreaded AirCon bills, that would be ace!

Alison_Funnell

I would have thought bushes /tall plants. So you get shade against the walls of the house, but leave enough gap for air circulation. Possibly even a 'fence' like structure would work. The trick being the shade on the building.

Wall insulation? Foil on the outside?

On a less serious side a giant ice cube on the roof would work.

Justamum

Chaos_Monkey wrote: »

So your comments are extremely unfair and offensive.

Oh dear, the 'offensive' word. As I said I'm only going on my own experience and that of others I know. As bluebag has said I think the good landlords are in the minority. I've not met one yet. Just one example - a few months ago a huge chunk of the ceiling in the kitchen fell down due to a leak in the shower above. It took about three months before anyone was sent round to fix it. We don't have a proper back door, it's actually an inner door so is draughty as hell. No carpets on most of the floors, damp which has been pointed out to the landlord, nothing done and it's getting worse, etc, etc.

We moved into one house which had been done up recently, only to find no washing machine, and nowhere to even plumb one in. When I pointed this out to the agent I was told that the landlord felt they had spent enough on the house, and if I wanted to get plumbing in we'd have to pay for it ourselves. We had no spare cash and couldn't save up for any. I was heavily pregnant at the time, no car to go to a launderette, and couldn't walk all that way with the washing. Luckily my mum lived about 10 minutes away so she'd come and collect the washing and do it for us.

I used to live in a bedsit many years ago. I had a small table-top cooker which stopped working. I told the landlord and even left it outside my room - for a year! He would come each week to collect the rent and empty the electricity meter and ignore the cooker. I bought a toaster and lived on toast and fruit for a year before I moved out. I was on the top floor, and there was a hole in the ceiling which had been stuffed full of paper to block it - by him or a previous tenant I have no idea - but he had no interest in spending any money at all on maintenance of the property.

I could go on but I think you get my drift.

If you are a good landlord then I'm glad for your tenants. As I've said before I have yet to meet one.

life_unexpected_2

We're in private rented and have to say our LL is ok. There has been some issues in the past but more due to her ex OH trying to do repairs on the cheap, which has led to the repairs costing more in the long run. She lets us get on with any cosmetic repairs and has allowed us to have our two dogs. Though have to say we are not the tidiest tennants (not dirty, just messy) which I suppose as a busy family household is normal.

Though it is very cold as the kitchen, dining room and conservatory are all open plan and the radiator in there is too small to heat the space. So it feels like the heat is sucks out of the rest of the house. So this year I plan to hang curtains across the front door and have made fleece draught excludes for agains all internal doors.

Between the conservatory and the dinning room there is a large arch and this year I plan to put curtains across this, I hadn't though about lining them with fleece but sound like a good idea. I had been playing with the idea of tacking a large sheet of plastic (like the sheets builders use to reduces mess) across it but worried about how this will impact on ventilation.

Kids both have hot water bottles and fleece blankets but DD room is always toasty due to boiler being in there.

I keep cheap sleeping bags in a chest in the living room for us to use of an evening (only when we dont have guest ). We did have fleece throws but the dogs took to fighting over them.

Austin_Allegro

You can make cheap 'shutters' for your windows. Just get old cardboard boxes and cut them to just a little larger than the window frame (you can tape odd bits together with gaffa tape) so that they fit snugly across the frame. Cover them with silver foil as well to reflect heat back into the room. Once the curtains are drawn nobody in the room will see them (people who are outside might think it a bit odd, but who cares - if you'r really worried then cover the cardboard with patterned wrapping paper or fabric. Then in summer if it gets hot enough (haha) you can turn the shutters round so that they reflect the sun off the room and so that you don't get woken up at 5am by the sunrise. You can cut a small 'louvre' in them as well if you need just a little light in the mornings. This worked well for me in rented accommodation - I just kept the 'shutters' under the bed during the day when not in use.

bluebag

chaosmonkey,

Just from chats I've had with people in Florida, the heat isn't so bad it's the humidity that makes it awful, so maybe if you have high humidity then a de-humidifier or two would make sense and are less to run than AC.

They tend to grow shade around the building and most choose white paint on the exterior to refect the sun.

Keep heavy blinds, curtains drawn on the sunny side of the building and only open doors and windows on the shady side, so the air is cooler on entering.
Lots of fans including one over the bed at night.

Those on limited income tend to only use the AC during the hottest part of the day and only in the hottest part of the year.

Seakay

Justamum wrote: »

I'm only going on my own experience and that of my parents, and also of many people I know. You are probably in a small minority, luckily for your tenants.

So you actually have no idea if she is a minority or not but you feel no compuction about making sweeping generalisations anyway. Your remarks (which would be categorised as racist if applied to a person of colour, always a good measure if you want to check you are being reasonable I think) are based on your experience of 'many' people, so not all of the ones that you know, and yet you lambast all landlords. Even by your own standards you are being completely unreasonable.
If you want us to consider your own or specific other cases then by all means relate them, but don't allow your bias to cause you to libel others and make yourself seem unsympathetic and illogical.

Justamum

Seakay wrote: »

So you actually have no idea if she is a minority or not but you feel no compuction about making sweeping generalisations anyway. Your remarks (which would be categorised as racist if applied to a person of colour, always a good measure if you want to check you are being reasonable I think) are based on your experience of 'many' people, so not all of the ones that you know, and yet you lambast all landlords. Even by your own standards you are being completely unreasonable.
If you want us to consider your own or specific other cases then by all means relate them, but don't allow your bias to cause you to libel others and make yourself seem unsympathetic and illogical.

Blimey, you're a bit OTT. BIB - How on earth you managed to bring racism into it is amazing! I'm hardly libelling anyone either - libel applies to making comments about a specific person, which I haven't.

I'm sure there are landlords who are excellent, and if any landlords who are on here found my comments offensive, I'll just say that I find it rather offensive to be seen by my own landlords as just another source of income and no consideration if the house we are living in is decent or not.

Anyway I'm bowing out of this discussion now as it's getting ridiculous.

philtgilly

Thanks for all your great,useful tips,most appreciated. Cheers ! I'll get to work now before the North wind doth blow............

[Deleted User]

I understand where you are coming from re an old draughty house as I live in a large Victorian conversion which is a NIGHTMARE to heat

Years ago I could afford to have the central heating on in the rooms I used at least but with fuel prices rocketing it actually got to the point where I could not even afford to have the central heating on at ALL

So I resorted to a ceramic heater , just used to huddle next to it but then got broken capillaries from practically 'cooking' my leg next to it , so had to stop that

Tried wearing 3 layers of clothing & a wooly hat but was still cold so decided to move up into my bedroom to 'live' for the winter & that has actually worked out fine for now & have got used to it as it is a much smaller room to heat & have an ensuite shower & wc so just pop downstairs when I need a cup of tea or to cook!

Its shocking how much gas and electricity costs now & 2 years back I paid 100 quid to fix my nice flame effect fire but turned out I couldn't even afford to use that as it was burning way too much money by the hour

I am looking to downsize now to a smaller , cozier house as am hoping it will cost much less to heat as I have huge draughty windows downstairs and my living room opens to the loft room which is freezing & my downstairs neighbour removed all his radiators & since then am even more freezing , so living in my bedroom it is until I move & its actually not too bad as have everything I need up there

( Things I tried in the past were bubble wrap stuffed up the chimney , blocked the loft room opening with cardboard & the radiator foil thing when I could afford to use them even though the room was NEVER WARM , plus I bought this radiator fan thing to blow the heat around the room , think it helped? Can't wait to move to my 'cozy cottage' if such thing exists because I LOVE old properties , just hate the draughtiness!! )