How to Hide Home Damage from Your Landlord

We all get in this awkward situation at least once in our lives: our landlord is at the house and you know there’s something they won’t want to see that could possibly get you in trouble.

Nine times out of ten it’s easily fixable, but it’s just not fixed yet. Maybe it just happened a few days ago or it’s a personal improvement you made to the place but it’s technically against the lease. It will only benefit you to know how to cover up damage from your landlord.

1. Decorate Your Walls

If the damages you are trying to hide are cracks or stains on the walls, try decorating your wall over the damage. This can be done by simply hanging up a photo frame, canvas decoration, or poser.

If the damage is extremely large and you have a limited amount of time to cover up the damage, you can repaint over the wall. If you’re allowed to change the color of the walls in your rental, this also gives you a reason to give your room a change-up.

If you aren’t allowed to change the color, just get a small can of the paint for the color that’s already on there. Your landlord typically won’t find it suspicious if you ask for the exact color, just say that you plan on fixing any paint damages you have caused to the walls.

2. Rugs

Sometimes the damage you need to hide from your landlord is a simple stain on your floor or scratch on the hardwood. While all of these are easy and fairly cheap permanent fixes, sometimes you need to find a solution or simply make it go away as quickly as possible.

In this case, your best option is to simply move a rug over the problem area. Depending on how detailed your landlord is, you may want to arrange your furniture slightly so the placement of the rug doesn’t look suspicious.

3. Good Decorations

Another way to hide the damage from your landlord is simply sprucing your place up with some nice decorations. Decorating your apartment or home can give a homier and well-taken care of feeling to the place and divert their attention away from the flaws.

Especially if the decoration is within their taste, they’ll be so distracted by the decorations that they won’t notice the home damage.

4. Quick Fix for Your Carpets

If your issue is carpet stains or odors, your problem is easy to solve. If your carpet just has a stain on it but you don’t have a rug in the appropriate size, shape, or color, there are plenty of DIY carpet stain removers that will remove it enough until you can get it professionally cleaned.

One easy solution to hide the stain temporarily is to mix one cup of white vinegar with two cups of water. To clean the stain simply pat the problem area with the solution with a wet washcloth.

If you’re looking for a solution carpet odors caused by water damage your best option is called a professional. Odors from water damaged carpets are usually a sign of mold and bacteria and can be harmful to you, your pets, and your home.

Bottom Line

Although it may be looked down on and it’s never the preferred option, there may come a time where we need to hide a damage from our landlord. We all get busy and carried away with our personal lives so it’s tough to be in such a rush to get the damage fixed.

As long you plan on getting it done by the time the lease ends, especially if the damage doesn’t even affect you, you’re good. In most cases, the damage you need to hide is something small like a paint scrape on the wall or crack in the drywall, or a coffee stain in the carpet. All of these damages are quick and easy fixes as simple as moving a photo frame on the wall.