Evanston Illinois - EAT ME

The BBQ Pit
1

[selfish rant]

I am a responsible, nice, employed, college educated, good credit history having, non-smoking, married, good cooking, good housekeeping, relatively good singing, cheerful, unsmelly, considerate apartment dweller.

I also own a small dog.

Yes, a dog. And so now…when my rent is up in April…I’m fucked. My husband and I are simply fucked in trying to find an apartment in Evanston that allows dogs.

Do you allow small dogs?

OH NO! NEVER!! DOGS? HOW DARE YOU. NONONONOnononoNOnoono.

Interestingly, cats, who SHIT IN THE HOUSE ON A DAILY BASIS and claw furniture (I know, I had two) are welcomed with open arms almost everywhere. But I guess dogs will cause the very foundations of the building to tremble.

My sweet little beagle, six years old, quiet, housebroken, used to apartments, used to stairs and people, with well clipped nails that won’t scratch the floor and well groomed coat that won’t shed…is being judged! Prejudged! They won’t even meet her! I just want to live in Evanston, next to the purple line, and have my sweet little pup. Is it too much to ask?

[/selfish rant]

And as a side note…Chicago Reader, you have sections in your apartment listings for One Bedroom, Two Bedroom, Three…blah blah, why not a separate listing area for “DOG FRIENDLY APARTMENTS” It would help immensely.

There. It’s out of my system. I think I’ll go back to work.

jarbaby

2

Um, “purple line”?

3

i think it’s a train line. in chicago, they have a red line, and a green line, and (apparently) a purple line. or maybe it’s a bus line. but something like that, anyway.

and jarbabyj, i’m sorry for your poor beagle and your housing problems. evanston is a cool place, i understand why you would want to stay there.

4

Sig? “It’s not that the bridge is too small–the truck is too big”? No?

P.S. You should get a macaw and try again. Macaws are even messier than either cats OR dogs, plus they scream madly at all hours of the day or night. But landlords let them in. “Oh, a bird? Sure, no problem.” Then after you find a place that will rent to you with your manic-depressive feather-plucking parrot, bring the dog in and nobody will even notice she’s there.

But then, of course, you’re stuck with a madly screaming manic-depressive feather-plucking copiously-shitting baby-biting peanut-shell-bestrewing macaw.

I understand the pet industry has had some success with Prozac.

For you, not the bird.

5

sorry, everyone. Yes. the purple line is a train line (DUCK DUCK! You pervert, I can only imagine what horrors you were imagining.)

A macaw you say? And if I could teach it some dirty jokes, we’d be in business.

by the by Duck, my sig is a song lyric. To try to translate it literally is to go the way of madness;

“Insanity is a narrow bridge. It’s banks are reason and desire.”

It’s entirely possible that I spelled a word wrong…but I’m having trouble settling on a sig that sums me up, and this is one of my favorite songs.

jarbaby

6

Go Wildcats! If you think that’s bad, try getting an apartment with a pet snake :eek:

…sorry, it’s all I have to say. I’m a non-productive member of society I suppose. :frowning:
punk snot dead

7

It’s bad in SF too. They’re incredibly open here in SF. Sexual orientation, personal beliefs, whatever. Just don’t have a dog…
:frowning:

I feel for you.

8

I lived in Evanston for the last 15 years. Where are you now??
you should try The Evanston Review for apts. It is easier to search amd has better locally rented ones. The Reader has almost nothing in Evanston.
I’m in Rogers Park now and waiting to get back.

9

I begged and pleaded with my landlords to permit me to have a cat. A small cat. A well behaved cat. A tidy cat. This went on for weeks. The wife began to relent. The husband gave me dirty looks each time he saw me. Finally, they agreed on the condition that I double my security deposit. Yes folks, double that deposit, and I live in New York City. Just in case the cat started smoking in bed while I was at work, I guess. Oddly enough, after meeting my cat, these people decided they wanted a cat too. So now there are two cats in the building. Whatever.

Poor jarbabyj. I hope you find an apartment soon. Did you try asking your vet, or pet stores in the area, if they know of pet-friendly buildings?

10

I’ve been in the same position, only with one largish dog and two cats. I called a bunch of places when I was looking to rent and the first question I asked was “Do you allow pets?”. If the answer was “no”, I said thanks and hung up. I called a bunch of places. A bunch. I finally found a place, not exactly what I wanted, but I could afford it and it allowed pets!

The problem is not your dog, it is all the irresponsible people who came before you, people who didn’t pick up the doggie’s doodoo, people who allowed their dog to bark at 2AM every night, people who let their dogs run loose. When I moved out of the place I was renting (it was a townhouse), some other people had done $40,000 worth of damage to another unit, and I know they had more than one dog, and from what I heard, quite a few cats. It is those kind of people who ruin it for us responsible pet owners.

Good luck, and keep looking!

11

[sobbing]

thank you everyone for your support! I feel the love.

[/sobbing]

Luckily we DO have a month or two to scour the streets. I called a place yesterday and said “Do you accept small dogs?” and the woman laughed out loud and said, “NO WAY.” Nice.

jarbaby

12

This intolerable discimination against beagles has been duly noted. Our membership will shortly be in contact with you regarding possible counter attacks against the landlords.

Semper Fi !!

Clancy the beagle.

13

In our area we have an agency that specializes in pet-friendly apartments. I am a landlord myself and having several pets (we don’t have to go into how many), I sympathize with pet owners who get refused out-of-hand.

By the way, there are many landlords who don’t want children either. How many professional couples who work all day and party all night (and thus give less wear and tear on the apartment) are there to go around!

14

I saw a listing the other day that said: No dogs, cats, smokers or children.

Good lord man, if you’re that afraid of everything why are you even renting the place out?

beagledave, your pup is VERY VERY sweet. If I had a picture of little Marge, I’d post it here, but alas, I’m afraid it would be so cute, the board would crash.

jarbaby

15

I am so with you jarbaby, though not really agreeing on the cat point. Also in my area L.A., it’s hard to find an apartment that allows ANY pets. We have four illicit cats where we live now and we feel like criminals. I know four sounds like an awful lot but we are very conscientious about cleaning up after them, and they don’t poop or pee anywhere they shouldn’t. Yet the landlord is not allowed to ask prospective tenants the following: Do you have little kids between 4 and 8 who run around the halls at all hours, screaming, ringing people’s doorbells, and putting their grubby little handprints on the walls? Just about every other family on my floor seems to meet that description.

I can see where loud dogs would potentially be a problem because they can disturb other tenants, but landlords here are anti-pet in principle. I opened a GQ thread on this very topic. Do a search on “cats” and “landlords” and you should find it. Several landlords participated in the discussion, and some were cool about pets while one or two were very much against them. One said he’d ban smoking and drinking if he could get away with it, and I nearly took him to the Pit I was so insensed. The basic anti-pet argument seems to run along the lines that they do irreparable damage to the apartments, which one landlord said “they worked so hard for”. Fuck that. We tenants also work hard just to keep a roof over our heads while paying the landlord’s mortgage, which goes to the betterment of him and his heirs, not us.

Having said that, I want to make it clear that I don’t deny that pets can and do cause damage to apartments (though not necessarily irreparable), or that tenants shouldn’t be responsible for them. I think tenants should have to make good on any damage that their pets do.
Some sort of extra deposit or even a surety bond might work to bind the tenant to this obligation and protect the owner. The trouble is that when you can’t even broach the subject with your landlord, you can’t come to any mutually satisfactory understanding (although the landlord may find it satisfactory from his POV).

16

I don’t think they’re allowed to exclude children…see my post above.

17

People are capable of doing so much more damage to housing than animals. In the incident I posted about above, the $40,000 in damage, they hauled out the dishwasher and toilet and left them for the trash men. For the life of me I can’t figure out how the animals could of destroyed either the toilet or the dishwasher. But because of that, the whole complex banned any new tenants from having animals. And just for the record, the only part of my security deposit I forfeited was because the damage I had done (hanging stuff on the walls & ceilings) not anything my pets did.

18

When I relocated, I was lucky in that my university offered a map that showed all major apartment complexes places in the town, and they indicated whether pets were allowed or not on the listing. That narrowed my list down promptly!!! So that’s idea #1: Call Northwestern’s Housing office, see if they have that sort of thing that they offer to grad students or undergrad students seeking off-campus housing. Maybe they’d be willing to share that with you even if you’re NOT a student.

You might be able to find a place that accepts pets as a policy–but if not, Idea #2: maybe you can find a landlord who will make an exception for you. That won’t be as likely in a building or complex, because then they’d have to let everyone have a dog. But if you locate a single-unit landlord, how about not leading with pet question? Ask some other things, establish yourself as a good prospect, and THEN say “I’ve got a dog less than 20 pounds who can offer even better references than I can. I’d be happy to pay a larger security deposit, and I can provide letters from past landlords that the dog is a great tenant. How do you feel about that?” Who knows, maybe that’d get a foot/paw in the door.

19

Jarbabyj, I have SO been in your position. When my prick-fuck-son of a bitch landlord sold our building and we got 30 days to move out (all of which happened about 60 hours after we got back from our honeymoon, btw), it was back to finding an apartment that would allow me to have my shar-pei, the nicest, quietest dog in the known universe (his name is Spanky and he’s cream colored, FYI), along with our new dog, a german shepard/shar-pei mix (she’s relatively small, 40 lbs).

It took 2 months, 106 phone calls and 14 visits to buildings before I found that first apartment; with two dogs the task proved impossible. Giving up the dogs was never an option; given unfortunate medical circumstances, they are the closest we will ever get to children.

We learned quickly that two dogs and an apartment don’t mix, getting a lot of the incredulous "Yeah right"s when we’d mention the dogs. We ended up buying a house a year before we should have. Great house, great dogs, great marriage, but living hand to mouth is getting old.

Wow, I’m actually shaking I’m so pissed at that jackass landlord. He’d sold the building 10 days before we got married but didn’t want “to ruin our wedding.” Thanks pal, you just helped get the marriage off to a rocky start.

Thanks, jarbabyj, for givin me a chance to vent.

20

[the Village Idiot speaks to the Lying Shit ] :smiley:

Hi, Jarbaby. Saw your remark about “a pissy apartment-hunting failure mood” in the other thread and am bumping this to inquire, instead of feeding the you-know-what in the other thread (psst, sweetie, quit throwing your banana peels into his cage, they LOVE that).

So, no luck, huh? Dang. :frowning: