How to be a Terrible Landlord

Being a terrible landlord is an art form.

They’re always finding ways to charge us as much as possible without doing any work.

So here’s the Tabs top tips on how to be an awful landlord, with real photos from student houses in Leeds.

1. When your old tenants move out, don’t bother cleaning before new students move in. Just let them stew in the dirt.

2. Tell your tenants to just ask if they need anything. This gives a false pretence that you’re really nice. But then ignore them when they ask for anything.

3. Don’t provide them with a hoover. Or a dining table. Or enough seats. The more household essentials you can get away without, the better.

4. When they ask for a sofa, or whatever is missing, tell them that you’re waiting for one to come up. It’s funny because we all know sofas don’t just ‘come up.’

5. When your tenants phone you at night to tell you the electricity has completely gone off, tell them to ring again in the morning if it’s still out. Of course they won’t be able to charge their phones so they won’t be able to ring back in the morning. Sneaky.

6. Make a game out of seeing how long you can get away with telling tenants “someone will be round in the next few days.” They can live without heating for a few weeks. After all, they’re not people, just students.

7. If your tenants complain, bolt their bedroom door shut. Yes they’re paying rent but it’s your house so your rules.

8. If furniture breaks, leave it broken for the next tenants. Then deduct the cost of fixing it from their deposits even though they didn’t break it. Everyone wins. Except your tenants.

9. Keep as much of their deposit as possible when it comes to them moving out. Oven not been cleaned? £100. Furniture been moved around? Another £100.

10. Once they finally move out, put off giving your tenants their deposit back. You never know, they might forget. If not, it’s perfectly acceptable to keep it for another 6 months.