We own and manage a small apartment building in Northern Idaho. What policies or rules can we enforce on tenants posting political signs or activism signs? We'd like to restrict them to posting one or two signs in windows that are a 12" x 18" or 18"x24" and don't cover up more than 20 percent or 1/5th of the window. Does anyone have policies on signs they're willing to share? We had a tenant hang a political sign up and another tenant wanted to hang up an activist sign so we need a policy. We want to support free speech and expression but restrict tenants from mounting signs in a way that damages the building. Out existing lease does ban hanging anything on the building but we'd like to clarify the language. In 20 or so years of owning and managing the property, this is the first time this has come up.
San Antonio, TX · Member since 2019 · 930 posts · 836 votes
6y
@Dylan Mitchell
We had a simple policy of no signs, banners or flags visible from the outside. Not sure it would hold up against a determined challenge, but no one has pushed the issue yet.
The tenant is mounting signs on my apartment too. But they don't cover up the windows. In some portion, they mounted a frame and hanging the signs on those frames. By doing so, the windows are not covering, but it definitely blocks the visibility. We don't mind this because the water pipes and chimney are mounted on this portion of the building.
I don't know there are any rules that we can enforce on tenants posting political signs. But you can ask him to use a frame instead of just hanging them.