Should Landlords Buy Their Tenants A Xmas Present?

Sadly, I’ve dealt with some complete and utter dipshit tenants before, the type that made me want to toss myself over a cliff, just to make the misery end. The ONE positive that I managed to squeeze out of those dire situations was the fact that they truly make me appreciate the wonderful tenants that play fair.

I think landlords often forget how incredibly easy it is to end up with lousy tenants, including those that:

• fall into arrears
• don’t report important maintenance problems e.g leaks
• don’t treat their accommodation like a home

I’ve spoken to a few other landlords about this, and they think it’s unnecessary to buy a tenant a Christmas present, regardless of whether they’re a shining example of what every tenant should be like.

I, of course, disagree.

The arguments for why landlords should NOT buy their tenants Xmas presents:

• a landlord and tenant relationship should be strictly professional, and by buying a present you start crossing lines.
• the money will be wasted. If your tenants’ are good, they won’t stop being good if you don’t buy them a Christmas present.

Granted, I do agree, that a truly good tenant will remain a good tenant even if you don’t buy them a Christmas present. However, I think that’s besides the point. My mum won’t stop loving me if I don’t buy her a present (I hope), but I’m going to anyways.

The point is that it’s nice to show appreciation every so often.

Christmas Gift ideas for tenants

I have a really good relationship with two of my tenants. We have good conversations on regular occasions, and they truly are the epitome of decent human beings, least of all tenants. So this year I purchased an unimaginative bottle of Moet for each of them. Each bottle cost £30.

Is that expensive? Not at all considering what they’ve done for me. I see it as an investment.

No need to be creative in my opinion, boring and predictable will do:

• Premium chocolate
• Bottle of alcohol (if they’re inclined to consuming poison, that is)
• Candles / scents
• Pamper basket

So my recommendation is, every now and then, whether it’s for Christmas or just a regular Monday, consider showing some appreciation to your tenants that deserve it.

If you decide to splash out on your tenants, I’d love to hear what you’ve got them, no matter how big or small.

If you’re unfortunate enough to have the bottom of the barrel, useless, freeloader tenants, then you can similarly send them what they deserve, a bag’o’shit:

Why I hate Christmas. Maybe.

At the start of this blog post, I said I’ll circle back to my trauma. So here we are.

This has nothing to do with anything, but perhaps it’s good for my therapy. Better out than in, right?

A few years ago me and my bestie decided to do the whole present exchange thing, like a couple of teenage girls. We had never done it before and thought it might help me engage more with the festive spirit.

Okay, sure, let’s give it a spin.

I genuinely put time and effort into the present selecting process, and consequently the bestie ended up with some pretty neat stuff, which included: a pair of trainers, a trendy shirt, his favourite coconut slice cake-thing from a local cake shop, a couple of strategically chosen DVD boxsets and music CDs.

I was glowing with confidence, because I knew he’d be surprised by how well I know him!

In exchange, he handed over (wrapped in tatty newspaper, may I add- he thought that was hilarious!) a pack of multi-coloured ball-point pens (seriously, WTF? That’s the kind of garbage senile old women dish out to their grand children), a basketball vest (I don’t even like or play basketball. I ended up selling it on ebay for £50), and a homoerotic calendar of a young David Hasselhoff (which I left on the seat of the restaurant where the exchange was made).

You can only imagine the deep depths of my disappointment.

Never again!

Christmas sucks!

Seasons greetings, folks! Hope you have a good one xoxo