Renting has its downsides, but I've decided to stop waiting and start living plants, garden furniture and all | Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett

A lease for a Windsor property requires keeping grounds clean, tidy, and free from weeds. The narrator relates to renting, noting that tenancy agreements can impose maintenance duties that landlords may not enforce. The narrator chooses to weed after letting it slide for years, describing the uncertainty of investing in a rented garden. A letter from Clarion Housing brings new legal tenant rights, including eviction only for very good reasons and protections related to keeping a cat. The narrator contrasts this with private landlords and emphasizes that tenants handle decorating, including wall colors. The narrator also describes past fire inspections and the cat’s presence indoors.

"It was cheering to read that William and Kate's new lease for Forest Lodge in Windsor stipulates that they must keep the grounds clean and tidy and free from weeds. Solidarity, comrades! How relatable. For I too am a renter, and know how it feels to live under the landlord's cosh. My own tenancy agreement says something similar. Not that the landlords have ever enforced it. They take what I might euphemistically call a hands-off approach, which I acknowledge is preferable to the alternative."

"I was outside weeding this very afternoon, not because I'm legally obliged to but because I have decided, after four years of letting it slide, to enjoy my garden again. I say my garden, but it is of course a rented garden. When you're renting, there is always a dilemma as to how much time and money to invest in your surroundings, what with the constant awareness that they could be snatched away from under you at any moment. Or at least, that used to be the case."

"We got a letter from Clarion Housing yesterday and my heart started beating like a snare drum, a trauma response acquired from lengthy experience. But instead of yet another rent increase, it was informing us of our new legal rights as tenants (thanks, Labour!). Not only can we now only be evicted for a very good reason, ditto the cat. In fairness to Clarion, it does seem to recognise more than most private landlords that a rented home is still a home: the decorating, including the colour of the walls, falls to us."

"Unlike several of my friends, we never bothered to hide the cat when there was a fire inspection. Mackerel is an indoor cat and if anyone wanted to evict her, well, I say good luck to them and their still-intact eyeballs. So there I was this afternoon, feeling more upbeat about being a tenant than usual, weeding and swishing my hair like a princess (it is Kate who does the bulk of the gardening in the royal household which is, again, relatable), reflecting on my time renting this property, which now amounts t"

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