As a renter myself, I get the author's pain. I ended up just installing this non destructive retrofit switch for most of my home automation + smart bulbs. [1]

As a renter myself, I get the author's pain. I ended up just installing this non destructive retrofit switch for most of my home automation + smart bulbs. [1] https://www.thirdreality.com/products/smart-switch-gen3 https://www.thirdreality.com/products/smart-switch-gen3