I don’t think that’s a great comparison. You’re most likely never allowed to paint your door. I would say it’s more like curtains, your apartment has proprietary curtain rods, that you can’t put your own curtains on for some reason, so you ask all your neighbors how to change them. They respond with “have you tried opening and closing your curtains yet?”, “Try vacuuming them to get the dust off”. Then you finally get a hold of the landlord and they say you can’t replace them.