Rented homes

Most of the tradition’s advice was written for people who could not change their houses either. A tenant cannot move the door, turn the stairs, open a wall or change what the windows face, and neither could the household for whom the manuals were first compiled: a family in a courtyard house built by a grandfather, or lodgers in a town house divided among three families, which is how most of urban China lived. What the tenant can move is the furniture, and the furniture is where most of the rules live. This page sorts the rules into what a tenant can do, what a tenant can answer, and what a tenant should leave to the owner, and puts sizes on the toolkit.

What is fixed and what is not

Plan 01 A rented flat: what is fixed and what the tenant can move The walls, the windows, the front door, the kitchen and the bathroom are the landlord’s and are drawn faint. Everything drawn solid can be moved without permission: the bed into its command position, the desk to the side of the window, the sofa against a wall, a folding screen where a wall is wanted, a mirror on the side wall, lamps in the corners and a plant in front of the column. The tradition’s rules for a rented home are the same as for any other; only the list of remedies is shorter.

Everything on this site that begins with a bed, a desk, a sofa or a lamp applies to a rented home without alteration: the command position for the bed and the desk, the sofa with its back to a wall, the mirror on the side wall, the plant in front of the column, the lamp in the dark corner. A folding screen is the tenant’s wall: it makes an alcove for a bed, hides a desk in a living room and breaks the line from the door to the window, and it goes into the van at the end.

What to do about the fixed things

Some of what a tenant cannot change the tradition would have changed, and for each of those it has a second remedy that needs no permission.

A door in line with a window. Put something between: a table, a screen, a curtain drawn at night. The line is broken by anything a person walks round.
A beam over the bed. Move the bed; or turn it so the beam runs along the body rather than across it; or hang a canopy from a free-standing frame rather than from the ceiling.
A column’s edge at the sofa. A plant in front of it, tall enough to be seen from the seat, or a floor lamp, or the sofa moved a metre off its line.
A stove seen from the front door. A screen or a curtain on a tension rod in the kitchen doorway, or a tall plant beside the door.
A bathroom door facing the bed. Keep it shut, and turn the bed so that the door is at its side rather than its foot.
A dark entrance. A lamp on a timer, and a mirror on the side wall to double the light that exists.
A window that faces the wrong thing. A curtain that closes, a blind that filters, a plant on the sill: what the window shows is the landlord’s, what it shows at night is the tenant’s.
A front door that opens the wrong way, or faces a stair. Nothing can be done to the door; everything can be done to the two metres inside it, which is where the tradition puts the remedy anyway.

None of it needs a drill, and all of it is drawn on the room pages the list links to.

The tenant’s toolkit, with sizes

Fig. 02 Four things a tenant can do without a drill, drawn face-on. A: a curtain on a tension rod, wedged between two reveals across a window or across the line from the door. B: a folding screen, three panels that stand on the floor and make a wall behind a seat or across a corridor’s end. C: a floor lamp, plugged in, in the corner daylight does not reach. D: a rug, which makes a floor under a seating group and gives the seats a ground of their own. Everything in the tradition’s first rules can be done with things that stand, hang from a rod or plug in. The four here answer, in order, the through-house, the missing wall, the dark corner and the floor that is not a floor.

The four things in the drawing are the tenant’s whole toolkit, and they answer, in order, the four faults a rented flat most often has. The sizes matter, because a tenant buys these once and carries them from flat to flat.

A curtain on a tension rod. Rods wedge between two reveals up to about three metres; a curtain hung on one closes a window at night or breaks the line from the door to it by day. Buy the curtain for the widest window you are likely to meet, and hem it rather than replace it.
A folding screen. Three or four panels, each forty to fifty centimetres wide and about a metre seventy high: tall enough to stand behind a seated person’s head, light enough to move with one hand. It makes a wall behind a seat that has none, an alcove for a bed in a studio, or a stop at the end of a corridor.
A floor lamp. One that stands, with the shade at about a metre and a half so that the light is at the height of a standing eye and above a seated one, for the corner the fitted lights leave dark. A second, lower, beside the bed, if the sockets allow.
A rug. Large enough that the front feet of every seat in the group stand on it, which for a sofa and two chairs is about 160 by 230 centimetres; it makes a floor under a seating circle in a room whose floor the tenant did not choose, and it is the one thing on this list that changes the sound of a room.

To these add what the other pages already assume: a mirror on a removable hook for the side wall of a dark hall, two or three plants in pots, curtains that close where the landlord’s do not, and a bed with a headboard, which is a tortoise the tenant carries.

The next flat, viewed

1The door: which way it opens, what its line meets · 2 The facing, taken at the main window with the phone
3The bed’s wall: a solid wall the head can go to, a door seen from it · 4 The window: what it faces, and how far off
5The stove: where it stands, what is over it · 6 The bathroom door: not onto the bed or the table
7The party wall: a hand on it, and a minute’s silence · 8 The light: which rooms have it at this hour

Plan 03 The viewing, in ten minutes A one-bedroom flat with the route a tenant walks at a viewing and the eight stops the lease cannot change, in the order they come. The door first, which way it opens and what its line meets, since a door onto a corridor’s end or straight through to a window is a fault no curtain fully mends; the facing second, taken at the main window with the phone’s compass, because the finding your facing direction guide’s number is the one the compass schools need and a viewing is when to take it. The bedroom third, for the one thing it must have, a solid wall the head can go to with the door seen from it; the window fourth, for what it faces and at what distance, which the outside guide reads. The kitchen’s stove fifth, since it cannot be moved, and the bathroom’s door sixth, which should not open onto the bed or the table. Then the two things a plan does not show: a hand on the party wall and a minute’s silence for the neighbours, and the light, noted for the hour of the viewing so that a flat seen at noon is not taken for a bright one. A flat that passes six of the eight is a flat the tenant’s toolkit can finish; a flat that fails the door, the bed’s wall or the noise is a flat to leave.

The toolkit mends what a lease allows, and the plan above is for the ten minutes before the lease, when the tenant can still choose. A viewing is short and the agent talks, so the site gives the route and the eight stops in the order they come, and the tenant walks it once with the phone’s compass open. The door first, because it is the fault no curtain fully mends: which way it opens, and what its line meets, a wall, a window, the bathroom door or the bed. The facing second, at the main window, which is the facing direction guide’s number and the one a tenant who wants the compass schools will need; a viewing is the moment to take it, since the tenant will not be back before the keys. The bedroom third, for the one thing it must have and the toolkit cannot supply, a solid wall the head can go to with the door seen from it; a bedroom whose only solid wall is under the window or beside the door is a bedroom the bed placement guide can only half fix. The window fourth, for what it faces and how far off, which the outside guide reads and which the tenant cannot change at all. The stove fifth, because it is fixed, and the bathroom door sixth, because a bathroom that opens onto the bed or the table is a fault a screen answers badly. Then the two things a plan never shows and a viewing is the only chance to test: a hand flat on the party wall and a minute of silence for the neighbours, since the quiet guide’s cheapest fix is choosing the flat, and the light, noted for the hour of the viewing so that a flat seen at noon is not taken for a bright one and a north room seen in the evening is not taken for a dark one. A flat that passes six of the eight is a flat the toolkit can finish. A flat that fails the door, the bed’s wall or the noise is a flat to leave, however good the sector.

The first day

A move is the one day a tenant has the flat empty, and the tradition’s order of work is the order to unpack. Stand in the door and look in: what is the first thing seen, and where does the line from the door run? Then the bed, before anything else, on the wall the bed placement guide would choose; the desk, with the wall behind the chair; the sofa, backed; and only then the boxes. A bed placed on the first evening is a bed that stays where it should; a bed placed after the boxes goes where the boxes left room. The in a day guide gives the eight stations in order, and a move is the day to walk them.

What not to spend

A tenant should spend on the things that leave with them: a good bed, a lamp or two, a screen, a plant, a rug that marks the sitting circle, curtains that close. The tradition’s remedies for the structural faults of a house, a new door, a turned stair, a wall, belong to the owner, and so does the Flying Star chart, which is drawn for the building. A tenant who reads that chart and finds it bad has learned something about a house they will leave; the plan is what they live in, and the plan is theirs to arrange. The same goes for the shop’s objects: a crystal in a rented window is a crystal in someone else’s window.

Checklist

Bed in the command position: wall behind, door in view, out of its line; placed on the first day
Desk with the wall behind the chair and the window at the side
Sofa with its back to a wall, or to a screen
A folding screen where a wall is wanted: an alcove, a hidden desk, a broken line
A tension rod and a curtain for the window that faces the door
Mirror on a hook on the side wall of the hall; lamp in the dark corner; plant at the edge
A rug under the seating group
Curtains that close; the bathroom door that shuts
Nothing screwed, nothing bought for the building: spend on what leaves with you