I know that pets can cause damage and I respect the landlords that don’t allow pets, but it kills me that some of those landlords are slumlords that have no problem renting out crapholes to a half-dozen college students that get drunk and destroy the place weekly but flat out refuse to rent to a quiet couple with 2 small dogs.
End rant.
Agree - lived in some real shitholes because that was all I could get with a couple cats, and paid a bunch extra to do it. Have you talked to some local shelters to find out if they can point you toward per-friendly places? I got incredibly luck once with a nice apartment and a great landlady. Given the number of pets that end up at shelters because of pet-unfriendly policies, I hope they keep some sort of list, even if it is informal.
It’s worth a shot. My lease is up at my current place. It’s too expensive where I live and the house is old and poorly insulated. Every house in the paper and craigslist is No Section 8, No Smokers, No pets. Most of them are college rentals in a horrible section of town. I don’t know what i’m going to do.
I’ve had good luck with offering potential landlords more money - a pet deposit, a non-refundable pet fee, agreeing to deduct payment from my deposit for carpet cleaning or flea treatment after I move out (not that my pets have fleas) - and offering references from my vet and previous landlords. Of course, money only works if you can afford it, which I wouldn’t be able to do now. IMO, kids do a lot more damage than pets.
Interesting that landlord magazines regularly run articles bemoaning the “no pets allowed” policies carried by an amazing amount of these people. We’re around a 90% of units with no pet policies in my local area. It’s a completely unfounded prejudice. Dog and cat owners are almost always BETTER tenants, more responsible, more understanding and just generally good people to do business with. Most landlords have a legal requirement to mitigate any rodent infestation … [raises eyebrows] … which is nothing a crazy cat lady doesn’t fix in a BIG hurry.
The exceptions are Pit Bulls, Dobies, Rotties and now Chowchows. Landlords can’t get insurance when these breeds are on site. Carpeted units also suffer from pets, but rare is the prospective tenant that demands such.
Console yourself with the knowledge that those landlords are getting the quality of tenants they deserve.
Landlord here and I allow pets. No nasty aggresive dogs, but otherwise, sure. Keep the poop cleaned up if there’s a yard, but all in all, pet owners stay longer because they have fewer choices, and for me, that’s the name of the game. Everytime I turn a unit it’s about
$5K; granted, I upgrade every time, but it’s a bunch. Like Inter Alia says, offer a pet deposit, and in some case pet rent. Get references from prior landlords esp. about your pets. I won’t allow kenneled pets. Nor will I allow chaining dogs outside or barkers. Make sure your pets are licensed, and show proof of same, and vaccinations. I wish you luck.
I’d imagine the scenario driving it is that bad tenant + pets is a whole lot worse than just bad tenant.
And if you’re going to not let those 5 college kids in the unit next door have pets, how do they allow you?
Drive around town and write down phone numbers of places with signs offering rentals. It takes more time than browsing papers and online ads, but IMO that’s where the deals are.
I had better luck with small-potatoes landlords than with huge mega-complex apartments. If you can find someone who just has like, one house, or who lives in one side of a duplex and rents out the other, that might work out better. I focused on looking for places that were all hardwood & tile. I offered a bunch of money. I ended up living in a crappy shithole 1BR house for dirt cheap, because the landlady was an animal lover and a bit of a pushover and couldn’t say no. I actually took the dog with me to look at the place and meet the landlady and she took one look at her smooshy face and we were in. Later, I acquired another dog, and already had two cats, so I knew there was no way in hell I would get anyone to rent to me with four animals. So I bought a house and we all* lived happily ever after.
I knew someone who worked in property management, and this is pretty much the reason. It’s not that pet owners are bad tenants, necessarily, but a bad tenant with a pet can just create so much more awfulness in such a short period of time, and can really irritate the bejeezus out of other tenants. (So can children, but you can’t lawfully tell people they can’t have kids in the apartment – or else some landlords likely would.)
Even ‘good’ (comparatively) pet owners often have to be constantly monitored that they don’t just let their pet shit on the sidewalk 12" from the door to the apartment building and leave it there forever. Actually picking up dog poop, each and every time? Put the tenant squarely in the “saint” category.
The not-so-good don’t bother taking their pets outside. They let them shit in the hallways, or – in one particularly memorable incident – let a large dog simply use one of the (carpeted) bedrooms as a bathroom, for the entire period of the lease, and left all of the waste there, permanently. When they moved out and lost their security deposit, they were shocked and angry, and threatened legal action – it’s not like they just let the dog shit just anywhere in the apartment, it was only that one room! What’s the big deal?! It’s “his bathroom”! (They had to basically gut the flooring in that unit, and paid out of pocket, since the tenants were too broke to make suing them viable.)
As a dog owner, I totally sympathize that this sucks, but if I owned properties, I can understand. After the 50th tenant complaint about dog poop left around on the property, bad smells from apartments, aggressive animals not handled property, and the like, I can see just saying “screw this”. A lot of humans seem to think that dog maintenance is basically “feed dog and give it water”, and don’t account for keeping the dog clean, vaccinated, exercised, trained and, most of all, properly handling the waste of the animal.
My parents were landlords for many years; if I ever lose my mind and become a landlord, I won’t allow pets. I’m sure there are great tenants in the world (I like to think I was one), but a lot of tenants are exactly the kind of people who do what fluiddruid describes. There is this kind of mentality with tenants that it isn’t their property, so it doesn’t really matter what they do to it.
I’m a renter with a dog who moved within the past year: while I was looking, after I went through all of the listings that did allow pets (or said “case by case”) I started calling the ones I liked the most that said “no pets” and asking how firm the homeowner was about it. Most of them were pretty firm, but every now and then someone would say, “Well, maybe…” I wound up in a place that had a “case by case” listing, but now I know that it never hurts to double check when you’re low on options.
I’ve been a renter for 20 years and I’m an awesome tenant (my previous homeowner didn’t raise the rent until my second lease renewal just because she wanted me to stay), but the horror stories I’ve heard about other tenants… :eek:
But fluiddruid, I’m sorry, but what kind of landord doesn’t inspect their property for the whole term of the lease? You (not you specifically) have to do due diligence on your property, and that includes inspections-at first rather frequently, to make sure the tenants are not a*holes, and continuing throughout their tenancy. All needn’t be formal posting 24 hours ahead that you’re coming in, but I do filter checks for the HVAC. Battery checks for smoke/O2 detectors, leak checks that include the bathrooms of course…there is no way that could happen unless the landlord was negligent. And my tradesmen keep an eye on things as well-landscaper finds dog poop, I hear about it and then THEY hear about it. Any of the tradesmen I send in will report weird or just dumb things to me.
This makes me feel a lot better about accidentally breaking the toilet tank cover when I dropped it investigating why the toilet wouldn’t flush. Ooops. But I did get a new toilet out of it!
Lots of people ask me when I’m going to get a cat. People say I’m a crazy cat lady without a cat. But I don’t even know if my building allows pets, and I’m planning on renting for a long time, so it isn’t a good move right now.
As I look around the house at the damage my own pets have done over the years, (scratched doors when they want to come in a room, teething on the end of a wall unit, carpets pulled up and replaced with wood flooring since they don’t know how to wipe their feet, etc), I can’t say I blame a landlord. Animals are messy. Even animals well taken care of are messy. I keep baby wipes at the front door to wipe their paws and butts after they go out and still they are messy. Also, animals tend to smell bad. Most of the time you can tell right away if someone has a dog and that scent doesn’t leave with the pet. Nope, can’t blame the landlords for this policy.