Tenants

Wellington tenants face fine for Blu-Tack

Blu-Tack is a really useful tool for all those little jobs around the house. It’s an essential part of any office or workspace, and we’ve all probably got some floating around in that messy drawer in our kitchen.

Blu-Tack can, however, actually cause a huge amount of damage to walls. If you’re not careful when removing it, blobs of Blue-Tack can very easily pull little chunks of paint off. As the residents of 91 Farnham Street in Wellington discovered, this can be incredibly expensive to repair.

Wellington tenants face fine for Blu-Tack

The tenancy of Ross McKenzie and Meredith Kettell ended when the property they were renting was sold to a new owner. When the new owners were viewing the property, they noticed that there was damage to the walls. This was as the result of using Blu-Tack on them.

The Tenancy Tribunal ruled that the tenants were responsible for covering the cost of repairs. Damages caused by Blu-Tack aren’t considered normal wear and tear or accidental damage. The tenants would have been aware that by using Blu-Tack on the walls, it was likely that it would cause damage.

They were ordered to pay $603.67 from their bond to cover the repairs, as well as the $20.44 filing fee.
Here is the official order document, which contains more details of the case if you’re interested.

The lesson behind this for tenants is that – at all costs – you should avoid using Blu-Tack on your walls because you will have to cover the cost to repair the damage caused. If you still want to hang/display things on your walls, here are a couple of alternatives you could use instead.

Blu-Tack alternatives

Just a quick disclaimer: No matter what you’re sticking to your wall, there is always the chance of damage. These are good alternatives, but they’re not guaranteed to never damage your walls. If you’re putting things up on your wall, be prepared for them to incur some sort of damage.

Command hooks – These are great for hanging things like paintings since they’re designed not to cause any damage to the wall. Make sure that you have a rough idea of the weight of the thing you’re hanging, so that you can pick the right size and strength of the hook.
Washi tape – This is a decorative tape that is normally made from natural fibres like bamboo or hemp. Washi tape can be used to stick things like posters to walls and it is ideal as it doesn’t (normally) cause any damage walls. Plus, you can buy washi tape in a huge variety of colours and patterns, so you can add a bit of colour to your room.

At the end of the day, being able to decorate your rental property can go a long way to making it feel like a home. You just need to make sure that you’re making an effort to look after your rental, if you don’t want to lose out on getting your bond back.