Many apartment dwellers like to include items of religious significance or value in their apartment decor. If religious decor is important to you, you might wonder whether you can feel free to include what you wish on your apartment walls, and whether an attempt by your landlord to restrict such efforts would be legal or amount to unlawful religious discrimination.
How the Law Protects You
Thanks to the Fair Housing Act's (FHA) ban on religious discrimination, a landlord cannot bar you from displaying items of religious significance in your apartment. Nor can a landlord place restrictions on the number or type of such items.
In addition, landlords who frown upon decor tied only to a particular religion may still run afoul of the FHA because they come across as discouraging renters who identify with that religion.
For instance, if a landlord sends a maintenance worker to your apartment for a repair, the worker mustn't criticize religious items on your walls or your religion itself. If you're approaching the end of your lease term, your landlord likewise can't ask you to remove religious decor to make the apartment "religion-neutral" when showing it to new prospective tenants.
What if You Don't Want to Display Religious Decor?
Finally, you also have the right not to adorn your apartment with any religious decor, if that's your preference. Landlords who pressure tenants to display signs of their religion or who make tenants feel inferior because their religious beliefs are different than those of the other members of your apartment community are violating the FHA.
