These make use of adhesive magnets but I wonder if that is going to leave marks which is an issue as I'm renting. Any past experience using these or ways of avoiding permanent marks from adhesives would be appreciated.
uPVC has reasonably good chemical resistance, so you can use white vinegar, isopropanol or even dilute acetone to remove any adhesive residues from window frames. If you need to stick anything to a painted surface, use 3M Command Strips.
>>2917 >If you need to stick anything to a painted surface, use 3M Command Strips
This would be the case, painted wood you see. Although I'm not sure 3M have what it takes as it'll need to hold magnets, mesh and metal bits over a 52 x 38 space. I use the hooks internally but for a window that could create some force if the winds is pushing at the mesh.
I'm looking at a similar set-up only for flies and moths as I live above some shops where the back street is always full of rubbish that must be attracting them. It's getting really warm already so come summer I'm looking at a catch-22 of shutting the doors and boiling or opening them and then dealing with 10s of flies and moths everyday.
Do you find these fly screens impact the airflow? I'm concerned about how much they cut down on draft.
If so how effective are the alternatives i.e. lavender/mint/bayleaf plants?
Why are you so worried about leaving marks. You live in a flat, not a museum. If you can put nails in your walls, then surely whatever marks you think magnets can leave will be ok.
Unless you put straight up railroad nails into your walls, I doubt a landlord can legally withhold a deposit because there's the odd 1mm hole in your livingroom wall when you move out.
Even when I drilled holes for wall plugs to put up book shelves or framed pictures with a heavy glass and metal frame, this was never a problem. Just pull out the wall plug and put some plaster in that hole as you move out. And no landlord I've ever dealt with had any problem with it.
Even IF a landlord argues that a hole you've put in a wall for a picture or bookshelf can't be fixed properly by you getting a £10 tub of plaster from B&Q to cover it up and needs a professional painter and decorator, that's hardly going to cost the equivalent of your whole deposit. Not with today's rents.
It's a good idea to discuss all these things with your landlord before you move in. And if they're fussy about tiny holes in the wall from what is not an egregious misuse of their property by most people's standards, then you'll likely not enjoy living there in the first place, and it'll be better to move on and look at other flats.
I think I'm on otherlad's side here. You lot must all have won the landlord lottery and had astonishingly reasonable ones.
Every landlord I've ever had has been a chancer who would try to withhold your deposit for leaving a pube on the bog seat. One of mine tried to charge me for missing lightbulbs, in a disused fitting that was empty when I moved in. One of them tried to charge me for "not using the garden gate enough". Apparently it was somehow my duty to use the garden gate regularly so the lock didn't rust shut, not theirs to get a fucking waterproof padlock.
My favourite one was when they outright told me they wouldn't be putting my deposit in a protection scheme at the start of the tenancy. They tried to withhold my deposit at the end because I'd only given them 4 weeks notice instead of six, and I laughed down the phone at them while explaining the legality of using a deposit protection scheme.
Although even very minor damage from a nail or wall plug in a wall naturally doesn't count as fair wear and tear, you can still take a landlord to court for unreasonable deposit deductions. And in these cases, it is usually ruled that a landlord must provide proof that the amount they deducted matches the cost of fixing the damage you've caused.
They can make deductions even if your deposit was paid into a TDP scheme, but they can't just bag the money as they please and never give it back and cite somewhat dodgy or overstated reasons.
Point is, that doesn't stop them trying, and I'm sure a lot of the time they get away with it because people would rather just eat the loss than have to bother going legal.
Well I, for one, wouldn't just let somebody fuck off with 600 to 700 quid of my money that they have no right to because I put up a bookshelf and they didn't like the way I plastered over the holes when I moved out.
Nor would I, but you can't deny it's a massive arseache having to go through all the hassle every time you move, especially when you likely need the deposit quickly to put down on the next place. So I find otherlad's logic of not giving them anything to try it on with is reasonable.
So just ask the landlord to put something under Additional Terms on your tenancy agreement that reads something like, "Minor damage that isn't fair wear and tear but a result of typical occupancy will be fixed by the tenant at his own expense. Deposit deduction is only permissible if these repairs aren't up to reasonable standards". That way, both sides' interests are protected. If your landlord refuses this, walk away. They are probably planning to fuck you over in the first place.
"Reasonable standards" may sound a bit wishy washy, but unless you threw a lump of plaster onto the wall blindfolded and missed the hole by three inches or you ended up smearing plaster over a square foot of surface area, I'm not sure how plugging up a hole in the wall can be carried out unreasonably badly.
>>3077 Looking online it seems difficult to get a size that matches what I need. What I'm working with is:
82 x 193 cm front door (I'll have to put the screen on outside)
146 x 202 double door
For the first one I found a 90x210 that I can probably jiggery-pokery to fit on the outside.
The double door is a bastard though. I could cut it in half as there's a central pillar between the two but that makes it 73 x 202 which isn't helpful at all.
Anyone tried to do these before with more material or should I just try and find a proper man to do it?
You really are out of touch with the state of the housing market these days aren't you ladm8.
People are actually having to outbid each other on RENT nowadays. Think about that. It;s one thing to have competing offers on houses, but when I was a renter, the listed price was at least the price. Not so any more, you have thirty odd people viewing the same place at once, you're in no position to be giving the landlord any reason to dislike you if you actually want a place to live.
Which is exactly why they know they can take the piss.
>you're in no position to be giving the landlord any reason to dislike you if you actually want a place to live.
Are you clinically paranoid?
I avoid mass showings the same way I avoid landlords who are generally cunts. Granted, I really don't move that often, but I've found the best way to get to talk to a landlord one-on-one is to look through the small ads in your local newspaper, not the big adverts online that are managed by an agency. That way, I have so far only had reasonable landlords who took the time to talk to a would-be tenant one on one and get to know them. And once they have a feeling that you are a nice enough person, they will more often than not also agree to additional terms about minor repairs. It may be a seller's market, but that doesn't mean you have to take their love and cherishloads up the arse are a complete suppliant to them.
Mass showings are something that really boils my piss, because it shows how little appreciation either the landlord or the agency have for you as one single would-be tenant. Whenever I need to move and call somewhere about a property, I always ask if there will be a mass showing, and unless a place really greatly piques my interest, these days I flat out tell them that I'm not going to come to a mass showing. One agent then actually said "You think you deserve special treatment?," to which I told him to go screw himself.
If you've got about six months to spend fannying about I'm sure your approach is perfectly valid. If you're moving for a job or you're about to be kicked out or whatever, you don't have that luxury, you pretty much just take what you can and hope it's not shit. Especially since 'rona, it's gone absolutely mental in any reasonably sized city.
>>3093 This is mostly happening because of pent up demand from during the pandemic, when you could technically move but actually trying to pull it off was easier said than done. Plus as the moratorium on evictions and lengthening of notice periods for landlords has come to an end some of the cunts have been moving faster than Jimmy Savile would on a disabled child to be able to lock in that inflated rent.
>>3095 Not him, but the greed of parasites and the shitshow that is the fallout from the pandempocalypse are no excuse for tolerating a lack of basic fucking dignity.
>If you're moving for a job or you're about to be kicked out or whatever
Your landlord can really only evict you from one day to the next based on gross breach of contract or severe misconduct. In pretty much all other cases, they have to give you two months notice. Which isn't all that long, granted, but it's enough to look at a series of properties, and ones where you're not treated like cattle while you're being shown a flat along with 30 other people simultaneously.
One of my childhood friends from my home town was once evicted immediately because he physically assaulted his landlord over a rent payment dispute. Not really something you should ever do. He was given a week to remove all of his belongings from the flat and hand over the keys.
>>3098 Technically, landlords have to give you some form of notice to get you out, though if you're on a fixed-period tenancy the standard no-reason possession notice will often get served in advance. In the past, I've had it included with the tenancy agreement, though I suspect that might be illegal now.
There are two types of notices. A section 21 notice does not require a reason, and must be given two months in advance. A section 8 notice has specified grounds, some of which will result in automatic possession, and depending on the grounds will usually require one month's notice. While a section 21 requires more notice, it's generally easier to get once you go to court, since it's generally decided on the papers and almost always in favour of the landlord, whereas a contested section 8 will require at least two hearings to dispose of.
>He was given a week to remove all of his belongings from the flat and hand over the keys.
Without wanting to appear to defend beating up landlords even though landlords should be beaten up that was technically an illegal eviction.
Where I live now, it happens so often that people will move in for a few weeks and then vanish in the middle of the night that my tenancy agreement contains no deposit at all, but rather, the first and last month's rent. That way, if I leave, I have already paid my rent for the last month. I won't get my money back under any circumstances, but since it's rent I don't expect to. I have lived here for eleven years. Perhaps renting from a private landlord rather than a company was actually the answer all along.
I guess he didn't beat him up, but grabbed his landlord by the collar and shouted in his face and pushed and shoved him around a bit. At least that's what happened according to another friend who told me about it. But that would still have counted as physical assault, and it's something no landlord needs to take from you. I think I remember he was given a week to leave, but I might be wrong.
>>3092 So I did the front door and it was incredibly easy despite being over on size. I didn't need to do it but if you're drastically over you can always fold and staple to the size you need with no bother aside from chunky flaps.
Standard black magic tape will probably leave black marks but fuck it, with some white spirit I'll probably get it off faster than angrymodlad and a thread about the bloke-who-divorced-Dawn-French. The real test will come in a couple weeks when I get the big bastard screen for the double doors on the balcony and have to do it on the inside.
>>3102 This is sick. I've got the door on and light on and I'm laughing at the bastard moths hitting the netting and getting furious that they can't land on my clothes and lay eggs everywhere.