We’ve owned our own homes for years, but soon we may be faced with renting while building our retirement home. Out of curiosity, I’ve been checking out sites for rentals in the area I’d like to live. Mostly, I’ve been seeing “No pets” or “Pets under 25# ok with additional deposit.” When I see references to pets, I think cats and dogs, but I know people also have ferrets, rabbits, hamsters, fish, birds, snakes…
Got me to wondering: Does “No Pets” mean you can’t have a goldfish in a bowl or a canary in a cage or a lizard in an aquarium? This is purely idle curiosity - I have no intention of adopting any more critters when my dog goes to her reward, and the cat is, and will remain, a boat cat. So renters and landlords - what’s the deal?
It will depend on the landlord. Apartments that say “no pets” typically mean that you can still have pets that are ALWAYS confined (fish, lizard, bird, hamster, etc.), except for the occasional run around the living room. Our current landlord (we rent a house) said “no pets,” but what he REALLY meant was “no dogs.” He acted surprised to see our cats last week, but he knew we had them when we moved in.
And anyway, so long as your neighbors don’t see them and they don’t make noise, you’re typically in the clear. But then they charge you for the deposit and all kinds of other crap if the DO find out.
Typically what they mean when they say “no pets” is no cats or dogs because they can run around loose and mess up the carpet/walls/furniture or create a disturbance. When I was renting, though, I had small animals/birds and I always made sure the landlord knew about it and had it in writing on the lease that having the critter was OK. Because otherwise, anytime the landlord wanted to, they could use that as an excuse to make you move out.
Essentially, pets are whatever your landlord defines them to be. Some places won’t let you keep birds, but fish are all right. Other places won’t let you keep fish. In still other places, anything that can live in a ten gallon aquarium (lizards/snakes/hamsters, etc.) are fine, but cats, dogs, birds, ferrets, etc. aren’t.
Interesting. I can understand not wanting the kinds of critters that would soil the carpet or eat the baseboards (my husband owned a rabbit once that did that) Fish would seem to be an obvious exception, assuming you don’t have a leaky tank. I suppose the best thing to do is ask.
Not that it’ll affect me. Nope. No more critters for me… (she said with shaky resolve)
Thanks for the answers!
We had a “No Pets” clause in our lease, yet we had hamsters anyway. I suppose the landlord could have used it as an excuse had he really wanted to to kick us out, but he didn’t.
Zev Steinhardt
FCM, you may want to refer to the landlord-tenant laws in your jurisdiction. They may define “pets” for the purposes of legal lease agreements, especially in Florida state law.
It’s for this reason that here in Ontario, they made “no pets” clauses illegal. They’re totally non-enforceable for legal domestic pets, so landlords must show specific cause to boot you out if your pet’s causing damage or a disturbance. The reasoning was exactly what you bring up… the definition of “pet” can be made absurdly broad and wasn’t being consistently enforced.
With re: to Florida law, at our last apartment (over 2 years ago) the contract stated that if you wanted to have a fish tank over 10 gallons, you had to take out renters insurance. Same thing if you had a waterbed. Idea being that any leaks or accidents could cause water damage to the apartment.
I’ve known a lot of renters (college town and all) who kept all sorts of exotic pets (snakes, lizards, spiders, birds) that weren’t explicitly excluded in their rental agreement. I think the general idea of no pets is more along the lines of dogs / cats.
Most landlords will make an exception if you explain the situation and make sure to get it in writing. Their main concern is usually the condition of the apartment, and if you’ve got a pet that lives in a closed habitat that is not going to damage the apartment, they will usually not bar you from keeping them. But, as always, make sure to read your contract thoroughly.
Speaking as a landlord here:
When I say “no pets”, I mean no pets that you aren’t willing to shell out a big deposit for. I have had so much grief in the past over ‘untrained pets’. If you want to rent from me, plunk down your “non-refundable” pet deposit. This tells me you are sincere in the training and upkeep of your pet. When you move out of my unit, and there is no pet damage, I will return the deposit to you.
Unfortunately, many good pet owners have had to pay for the “bad pet owners”. It’s not fair, but my rentals are a business to me. I won’t bore you with the details of how many times I have had to have carpet and padding removed and replaced.
I tend to take it on a case by case basis. If they’ve owned the dog/cat for a number of years, and the previous landlord can attest to the “potty-training” of said pet, I may take a $100.00 token deposit.
I do try to work with people, after all, I have a ton of pets myself!
Good luck in your search, FCM!
Fish tanks can be a BIG problem.
It’s not the possible leakage problem (although that is what the renters insurance covers), it’s the weight. More so with a waterbed.
At approximatly 8.3 lbs to a gallon of water, a 55 gallon tank weighs 456.5 pounds in water alone. Add the tank, sand and base, etc and you come close to 500 pounds. Waterbeds are slightly different: the area is larger so the weight is spread out. Still, waterbeds weigh approximatly 1500lbs. Houses built to modern standards can withstand this, but older houses may not.
Of course, other things are heavy in a house (refrigerators as an example) but they are often placed arccordingly on joists, etc.
Place a 55 gallon tank on an old joist along with other heavy furniture and you can have a doozy of a problem architecturally.
Our apartment lease says “No noisy pets”, which essentially gives the landlords a way to evict if the animal is disruptive to other tenants. We have a cat, and several others in the building have dogs or cats, all of which have a signed permission form from the landlord. We do not have to pay a deposit. Of course, I do live in Ontario, so what RickJay said applies - they cannot enforce a “No pets” rule anyways.
Ferrets were included in the home I rented a few years ago. I had no idea when I got them, but when the rental manager did one of her inspections she fined us 300 dollars. This was after I sullied our yard with a clothes line and was fined 25 dollars. (There was already a post in place, but no line.)
The place I’m renting now had no problem with ferrets or cats and even let us by with a small dog even though there’s a No Dog policy.
Er, of course I don’t mean ferrets were actually included with the home…just under the No Pet contract.