What problems are caused by cats in apartments? IN my part of the country it seems that building owners almost universally ban pets. With some pets I can see there would
be obvious problems, for example the barking of a dog or a
parrot chewing the wall paint. But cats seem fairly innocuous. Most of the damage they cause is to the tenant’s own furniture–except for the carpet, which the landlord would have to replace anyway. Plus, the landlord has the
security deposit to cover cat damage. Some landlords do allow cats but require an additional deposit, which is a good idea. But it seems the vast majority ban them outright.
When did this trend start, or have things always been that way?
Probly because cats exude all kinds of noxious materials including urine, “spray,” feces, hairballs, and partially digested stomach contents. They also scratch up door jambs and climb curtains.
In my experience landlords don’t usually have a specific problem with cats. My apartment technically bans all pets; in practice, they allow cats (hell, they sell cat food and kitty litter in the building.)
The problem is that if you give people an inch they like to take a yard. It’s one thing to have a cat, but another thing to have a frigging German shepherd that barks ten hours a day while the owners are out. If you tried to draw the line between “disruptive pet” and “non-disruptive pet” you’d be arguing with tenants all the time. Better to just have a clause in the lease that bans them all.
In the case of my place, the lease specifically says that the fact that they haven’t enforced the provision against pets doesn’t mean they can’t whenever they want - giving them the flexibility to allow people to keep pets but take action against some dipshit who thinks it’s okay to have a wolf or a cobra in his apartment.
But if that’s true–and our cats exude the first and third of your list of effluvia only in the appropriate receptacle–then why would anybody own a cat? Though many
homeowners might also object for the reasons you cite, quite an appreciable number don’t, making cats the most popular pet in the U.S. Minor damage to doorjambs can easily be
repaired, by the tenant prior to moving if necessary, and the modern apartment-dwelling cat no longer has the option of climbing curtains. From what I’ve seen in my area, apartments almost never have curtains anymore; instead they have those hanging vertical blinds.
I think there’s more you need to take into consideration. As you mentioned, cat and dog urine can ruin carpet. But if left uncleaned there long enough (and you’d be surprised how many pet owners do this), it can seep deep down into the floor, and, depending on the material, the scent can be nearly impossible to remove. If the urine gets on the walls, it can be absorbed into the dry wall or wood, and leave a permanent stain and scent.
Noise isn’t the only consideration. Other tenants may be allergic to your pets. Outdoor pets will also attract mites and fleas, which will migrate to other tenants’ homes. (This I know firsthand. I’ve caught live fleas in our living room carpet, and we don’t have pets. The neighbors do.) Liability issues have got to be another concern, in the event your pet damages someone else’s property or bites someone.
Sure, your deposit can cover the damage, but why should it go to cover something like pet damage, which can be prevented by having tenants that don’t own pets, when it could cover other, more dire, unforseen repairs?
In short, it’s easier and cheaper for the landlord to ban pets.
I guess it all depends. In my last apartment the landlord had spent a fair amount of money rehabbing the place including having moulding expensively restored (i.e. stripped of paint and then stained and varnished) to its original state. He would be decidedly upset if our cats used his doorjambs as scratching posts. That’s true even if we end up paying for the damage. If your buddy broke your TV you’d still probably be mad at him even if he paid to fix it.
As for blinds our cats did a number on those. If the blinds were down and the cat wanted to sit in the window they’d climb through the blinds. Being metal they bent nicely.
As for the other ‘effluvia’ only cat piss really ranks up there. Poop and hairballs can be cleaned up but cat piss is forever. I never cease to be amazed at how toxic it is everytime I clean the litterbox (for those unaware it is very like putting your nose over a bottle of amonia and inhaling…it IS nearly that strong to the point of burning your nose and making your eyes water). A carpet with cat piss on it is rarely ever the same regardless of the cleaning applied to it and although I have no evidence for this it wouldn’t surprise me if that stuff removed varnish off of wood floors.
So, I love my cats but I could see why some landlords may not want to deal with the hassles of getting money from tenants to fix damage their cat had done. Your one month deposit is unlikely to cover replacing carpet or having the whole place re-painted.
Because it would piss off all the dog people? Adding a blanket “no pets” clause may seem arbitrary, but what is the proposed solution? If they changed it to say “no pets, except cats”, then all the fish owners would come out of the woodwork, since fish clearly have less of an impact than cats. And how about gerbils… they’re pets, they cause less trouble than cats too (if used in a responsible manner of course).
The point is, you end up with a clause in the lease that gives a laundry list of allowed pets, and then someone slips one thru that you REALLY don’t want on a technicality (“a cougar is just a big cat!”), and you’re screwed. So it’s easier to just give a blanket pronouncement like “no pets”, and if someone’s really unhappy, they’ll just live somewhere else.
I love my cats, but will probably not take them with me if I move out of the city. [ul][li]My oldest male, TC, started spraying when our newest, Spitz, started going into heat. He stopped when we got her spayed, but then restarted when my wife got pregnant (he knew she was preggers before we did). He’s continued since CRB’s birth, either from jealousy, hormones (from my wife who’s still breastfeeding), or just habit. He’s sprayed a VCR, books, wine rack, office chair, and a $120 sport coat. I clean and spray a pheromone that’s supposed to calm his urge, but no lasting solution is foreseeable. One final step my vet suggested is kitty portions of Prozac. :rolleyes:[/li][li]Spitz is part Maine Coon cat. They love to knit and tear at paper and fabrics. I think almost every loose corner of my carpet that I didn’t get to in time is chewed up at least 2 inches. (There goes my damage deposit.) Every piece of paper left out gets torn at, usually in the middle of the night.[/li][li]Othello, my meek middle cat, was a bit of a terror at first. He mangled a large plant to near-death, and dug at its soil until I got rocks in it to stop him. (I eventually took the plant to work, then gave it to a co-worker whose window has southern exposure.) He also clawed an expensive fabric chair.[/ul][/li]Of course, now, with this glowing report of their behavior, I won’t be able to unload them at any price.
Here’s a little picture of the type of damage cats can do.
This is a cat tree I built with some carpet remnants. The pieces of carpet were initially very well woven. But within days of building the tree, Spitz (the cat on the top) started pulling fibers, resulting in the look you see. Now just imagine her doing this to the carpet I don’t want her to destroy.
P.S. - That’s TC on the middle shelf, contemplating taking on CRB while he’s got the advantage. He never got a chance; she now outweighs him by 3 lbs and is starting to crawl.
I’m willing to concede a point here: Though I think it’s
wrong to ban pets outright, I can appreciate the justice of
pet owners having to deposit *extra funds over and above the usual deposit. That way, the standard deposit remains unencumbered to cover the the more basic repairs you mention. The problem is, when you meet a prospective landlord you can’t say “I realize you ban pets but would you be willing to make an exception if I add $300 to my security deposit”. ($300 is a typical “cat-deposit” amount that I’ve seen quoted). A lot of people sneak cats in anyway, but for obvious reasons can’t make such an offer. And to be honest, it’s usually fairly easy to get away with, but in the end everyone loses.
We found a big piece of driftwood on the beach and found, much to our pleasure, that Rocco, Clover, Shadow, and Devo
love scratching it, to the point that they don’t scratch
our furniture as much as they used to.
No one has addressed my other question: When did all this start? In old movies and novels one often finds tenants, in what are supposedly very nice apartments, and it seems to have been quite common for them to have cats, small dogs,
even parrots.
So, let’s say you’re living in Manhattan. I’m told that very few apartment buildings in NYC prohibit pets. Why are pets considered acceptable in a New York apartment, but not in apartments in other parts of the country?
Almost every apartment complex around my neck of the woods prohibits dogs, but not cats. My old complex wouldn’t even allow dogs on the property, but cats were roaming around outside everywhere. Okay, some dogs bark, but it’s nothing compared to the clawing, dander, and urine stink of cats. Why are cats seen as fairly benign, but dogs seen as something horrific?
The few places near here that do permit dogs have a weight limit – 25 pounds (11 kilos) max usually. My experience has been that smaller dogs, like most terriers and toy breeds, yap at the slightest provocation, while larger dogs tend to be very quiet. (My 40 pound PWD will sometimes go days between barks, although she tends to “talk” a bit.) So, why allow little yappers, but prohibit large quiet dogs?
I worked at an apartment complex that only allowed the smaller dogs so I can explain this one. The reasons given to me for their policy were these:
Larger dogs are more dangerous to other tenents then smaller dogs.
Larger dogs are capable of doing more damage to the apartment and grounds then smaller dogs.
Larger dogs need more exercise and are not well suited to apartment life.
I know that these reasons are not all exactly true. Small dogs can bite too. People are generally more afraid of the larger ones though. I have never heard of a child being mauled to death by a Jack Russel.
People had the larger dogs anyway and it was usually ignored. We just had a reason to make them get rid of the animal if it started to cause trouble.
I think there’s some exaggeration going on here. I mean, maybe I’ve been lucky with the cats I’ve lived with, but
they have never peed on the carpet, and any other kind of mess we quickly clean up before it has a chance to sink in.
The damage we have had to put up with has been confined almost exclusively to our furniture.
If cats spell death to property value, then why is it we
never hear about cat damage with regard to owner occupied
dwellings? We never hear of a realtor saying to a colleague, “I’ve tried and tried but I just can’t get a bite on the Jones house…you see, they had cats!”
I live in a sizable, professionally owned-and-managed apartment complex. What follows are some of the rules for pets:
[ul]
[li]Tenants must pay a sizable deposit over and above the standard move-in deposit. This can range from a flat $400 (if they’re offering a special) to $800 (assuming their standard rate of $400 per pet and the maximum of 2)[/li]
[li]Dogs are segregated to two buildings. This is so the dog owners can drive each other crazy over the barking. These buildings also have designated exercise-and-pooping areas.[/li]
[li]Cats MUST be declawed and vaccinated and spayed/neutered. They must also be contained within the apartment at ALL times.[/li][/ul]
Cats can do a considerable amount of damage. In addition to the spraying and the urine smell, cats can and do get destructive. My two darlings have ruined a mini-blind, and have managed to climb up to the tops of cabinets; God only knows what’s up there now. One of my cats has torn up the carpeting in the bedroom just from boredom. Fortunately, they have shelves to claw up instead of walls and doorjambs.
