One of the challenges with letting our own homes are all the emotional apron strings we create whilst we live there. Many owners who decide to retain their old house for renting when they move to a larger or better house ask how to deal with the emotional links they have made.
These are invariably tied up with big events like 18th and 21st birthdays, weddings, births of sons and daughters but they can be linked to many happy hours spent in the garden or greenhouse tending to plants, growing vegetables, planting roses often in commemoration of a special event and even planting special trees. We have heard also of engineers who have very happy memories of spending hours in the garage building cars or bikes and want to take the garage with them!
It can also involve memories of playing in the garden with young children as they grow up, throwing balls for dogs or grooming cats. All of these different memories create links that are hard to break and to an extent should not be broken.
So the question really is not how to break them as they are so very important to us, as in the end, they are all we have. Therefore how can we deal with them and in general we replace happy memories with new happy ones as we move on in life.
The suggestion therefore is to keep moving on with one’s life and gradually the memories for the old house will be replaced with new ones of the new house involving decorating the inside, buying new furniture and children growing up.
One of the things not to do is to keep returning to the old house and run the risk of stoking up all the old emotions, as unfortunately, many tenants will not keep the house in the same condition as the owners kept it. It hurts to see what is happening and so the best way is not to see it. So along with the saying “out of sight is out of mind” leave the task of managing your house with an agent who understands the situation and the emotional ties.
This challenge is often made worse when the house improvements have been carried out with loving care by the owners who when seeing the damage caused become quite emotional. The situation is that emotional handymen or ladies must rearrange their thinking that their house is now an income stream and the furniture and fittings are just assets, which are part of the package allowing them to receive an income.
This is another instance of leaving the management of your much-loved house to us the professionals. We will take care of your property and all the maintenance with lots of care and attention allowing you to replay your happy memories, as and when you like without seeing the pain of what is happening now. The rule therefore is “if renting don’t revisit” for any reason.
Happy renting and happy memories from Blue i.
