10 Hacks That Every Renter Should Know

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More than 45 million people in the United States rent their homes, and as purchasing a home continues to be out of reach for many, that number probably isn’t going down anytime soon. If you’re a renter, you know that renting often comes with some compromises in terms of control over your environment, space, and interior design. Being limited in what you can do because you don’t actually own the walls and floors can be a real challenge when it comes to making the space nice.

But with a few clever ideas, you can make your rental more comfortable, more useful, and less expensive—and ensure that you get all of your security deposit back when you move out. There are a lot of useful hacks out there for renters, but these are the fundamental, most useful hacks that you might not think of, but every renter should know.

Upgrade the little things

Renters—especially first-time renters—often assume that they can’t change anything in a rented place. This is absolutely not true—while you might not want to actually spend money on an actual renovation to a place you don’t own (although some people do just that), there are actually a lot of things you can temporarily upgrade to make your basic box of an apartment feel more luxurious.

Basically, if you can remove it, you can swap it. Light fixtures, cabinet and drawer pulls, bathroom mirrors, shower heads, faucets, toilet seats, and wall plates can all be easily removed and replaced with better, more stylish options. You put the old stuff in storage until you move out, and then you just swap everything back—and take your nicer stuff with you to the next place.

Peel-and-stick surfaces

Painting is powerful, and it’s not uncommon for a landlord to allow you to paint your apartment or rental house, helping you to inject some color and personalization into the place. But paint can’t repair janky walls, and painting a whole apartment (or even one room) can be a messy prospect. And sometimes you want to jazz up a space with tile—like kitchen backsplashes.

Peel-and-stick options like temporary, removable wallpaper or wall tiles is a prime hack. It covers any defects in the walls, offers an enormous range of styles and designs, and peels right off without leaving a mark when you move out. In some cases, you can even re-use the tile or wallpaper at your next home, if you’re really careful removing and storing it.

Folding furniture in small spaces

If you’re renting a tiny space, like a studio apartment, making it feel larger and making it more functional can be a challenge, especially since you can’t just hire a contractor and renovate the heck out of it. If you’re puzzling out how to make a small space multifunctional and less cluttered, the answer is probably folding furniture.

Wall desks that fold down, folding dining tables, folding chairs, freestanding Murphy beds—just about any furniture that you use can be found in folding format, allowing you to transform a space into several different rooms with just a few quick moves.

Stove and sink covers for extra prep space

Apartments often come with small kitchens and bathrooms, which can make cooking and washing up an exercise in frustration. An easy hack is to pick up some stove and sink covers for both the kitchen and bathroom. These handy items are cheap and provide extra prep space when you need it, then lift away to let you use your stove and sinks for their intended purpose. They can make small bathrooms and kitchens a lot more functional.

Install temporary flooring

Rentals often have floors that tell a fascinating story of abuse, damage, and poor design choices. From painted floors to carpets you’d prefer not to touch with your bare skin, nothing makes an apartment feel like a punishment than a terrible floor—and no amount of good taste on the walls or in your furniture choices will erase that awful floor.

So, cover it. You may not be able to sand and stain an abused hardwood floor, or tear up a carpet that was last cleaned in the previous decade, but you can very effectively cover it with a temporary floor that will pop right off when it’s time to move. This hack not only beautifies the space while you’re living there, it also guarantees that you don’t add to the damage and get nicked for stains, tears, or gouges.

This can be as simple as putting a rug over a gross carpet or putting peel-and-stick tile (or a vinyl rug) on a kitchen or bathroom floor. Deck tiles can upgrade a gouged and stained floor into an attractive and temporary surface. If you just want to cover an ugly floor and give your space a more modern, updated look, vinyl rolls are a cheap and easy option to install—and remove.

Erase-A-Hole for covering wall damage

Drywall is amazing stuff, but it’s not exactly strong. It’s very easy to dent, ding, and otherwise damage your walls just by living near them. And every dent and ding could cost you when it’s time to move out; while a strategically-placed piece of art might hide that hole in the wall, it’s eventually going to be a problem.

Luckily, there’s Erase-A-Hole. With this stuff, you don’t have to spend six hours on YouTube learning how to mud and sand drywall repairs. You just rub the stick on the wall, let it dry, and then touch up the paint if necessary. If you love hanging things on your walls, this is going to save you hours of sweaty work when you move out.

Get a stair-climbing cart

If your apartment is several flights up in a building without elevators, groceries soon become the biggest challenge in your life. Carrying heavy grocery bags up those stairs is not only a chore, it’s also an invitation to disaster because you’re probably going to try to carry everything in one trip, leading to broken bags, broken eggs, and possibly injuries because you can’t see your own feet.

The stair-climbing cart is the hack you need. You use it as a normal grocery cart in the store, but when it’s time to get all those goods up to your apartment, it makes pulling everything up the stairs easy, safe, and fast.

Install lots of tension rods

Tension rods aren’t just for shower curtains. Investing in a pack of simple tension rods can transform your rented home in a wide variety of ways:

• Use them to hang curtains without drilling into walls

• Place them inside kitchen cabinets to create extra vertical storage (and under the sink to hang all those cleaning bottles)

• They can also be placed vertically inside cabinets to organize baking sheets and other flatware

Maximize closet storage with closet triangles

Closet space is always a challenge in small rentals. That’s why every renter should know about these closet triangles. They can dramatically increase the storage capacity of any closet, allowing you to hang several shirts or pants in the same space without making any changes to the closet itself. They work with any type of hanger, and you’ll be able to use the extra space in your closet for any other storage needs you might have.

Take a video diary when you move in

When you sign a rental contract, you’re taking on a legal responsibility for the condition of the apartment. When you move out, landlords are quick to pounce on any perceived damage that goes beyond “wear and tear” from normal living. After living there for years, are you going to remember if that stain on the floor was already there? And even if you remember, can you prove it?

Before you move in, take a video of the place as you walk through. Focus in on anything that’s already stained, scuffed, damaged, or simply aged. Take your time and fully document the condition of the place. When you move out, you’ll be able to demonstrate that you left the place in the same condition you found it, and ensure you get your security deposit back.