How To: Customize Your Apartment without Angering Your Landlords

As you might imagine, I’m sorta of lease-limit pusher. I mean, I do read them. I do take their advice to heart, and sometimes, when I’m breaking it, I do recall, “Oh, yeah. I think I’m specifically not supposed to do this.”

But those moments are rare. See, I try to find ways to customize my space that aren’t direct violations of my lease. Whereas it does say, “Don’t paint,” it does NOT say “Don’t Mod Podge hundreds of little paint samples to the wall.” So, I did. (See above)

See, what my landlord’s don’t seem to understand (they’re an elderly retired couple, not a corporation) is that this is my home. It’s an investment to you, but I live here. I work here. I entertain here, have holidays here. And while it might be funny to you that I had to pull everything two feet from the wall so you could “treat for pests,” [read: have a 6.5 ft tall 80-year-old man spray some Raid around] and then tell me you’d do it again two weeks later, only to change your mind and not come for 13 more days, my entire life was shrunk by 65% for nearly a month…

What was I saying? Oh, right. There are lots of things you can do to customize your rented space without violating your lease. Except, ingnore the holes in the wall thing. All can be fixed. Email me if you don’t know how.  

Lifehacker has assembled a good list of tips and ideas, including creative uses of photos, vinyl decals, and wallpaper, that’ll have you feeling at home, beige be damned.

This ManMade post was originally shared in September 2011. We’re sharing again because it’s been a hit with our readers!