A common holiday tradition is hanging Christmas lights. But if your renters ask you to allow them to put up Christmas lights on your Honolulu rental house by themselves, should you agree? This question needs to be given deeper thought before saying yes. With all the possible hazards, there are many good reasons for not allowing your tenants to hang their own Christmas lights on the roof. But that does not automatically mean that your tenants will have to forgo this part of the holiday festivities. There are many ways you, as a landlord, can help your tenants ready their homes while keeping safety in mind.
One of the best reasons to ask your tenants not to install Christmas lights on their own is to avoid the risk of injury that comes with it. From 2007 to 2013, more than 173,000 people in the U.S. were injured by hanging Christmas decorations in their homes. The process of hanging Christmas lights on a home’s exterior can be very dangerous.
Every holiday season, an estimated 13,000 people injure themselves by falling off the roof or getting shocked by Christmas lights. As a landlord, you may have responsibility for your tenant’s injuries if loose or slippery roof tiles were a factor in that fall. To add, there is also the risk of electrical shock or overloading the existing breakers. You could still end up in a legal battle even if your property’s roof is not an issue.
Tenants hanging their own Christmas lights could also cause damage to your rental property, which is another reason for you to discourage them from doing so. Nails, screws, and other hardware are often used to secure strings of lights, garlands, and other Christmas decorations and it can leave ugly holes in walls, both interior, and exterior.
Even small holes in exterior surfaces can be entry points for insects or water into the walls of the home and cause extensive damage that result in expensive repairs. Even when there are many ways to decorate a home without causing any damage to walls or exterior surfaces, you can’t be sure your tenant will use them. They may mean well, but typically, renters are less cautious about damage than owners are.
As you keep both your tenant’s and your rental property’s safety in mind, you might want to offer your tenant another way to enjoy Christmas lights on their home while keeping liability and damages at bay. You can do this by hiring a professional to do the Christmas lights installation on the home for your tenant. Since professionals carry their own liability insurance, they can do the job faster and safer than your tenant could.
What’s more, these professional light installers often also offer services to take down Christmas lights from the home post-holiday. Given all of these, paying someone to do your Christmas lights installation on your rental house doesn’t seem so bad at all.
Not only will you ensure the safety of your tenant and your property, but you’ll also build goodwill with them and improve your landlord-tenant relationship by giving them the gift of more time during the holidays.
Whether it’s installing Christmas lights or doing routine property maintenance, managing a rental property can make you too busy to enjoy the holidays yourself. Why not let Real Property Management Alliance do it for you? Our property management professionals have the resources and expertise you need to feel confident that your investment and your tenant are both safe and sound this holiday season. Would you like to learn more? Call us at 808-427-0611 or contact us online today!
We are pledged to the letter and spirit of U.S. policy for the achievement of equal housing opportunity throughout the Nation. See Equal Housing Opportunity Statement for more information.
