This story is a tough one for animal lovers:
As the number of home foreclosures escalates, many distressed homeowners are left with one more difficult task – giving up their pets.
People often find themselves in smaller rental homes or apartments after losing their home, and many of those rentals do not allow pets.
Many owners take their animals to shelters, hoping their pets will find new homes. Others simply move without their pets, leaving them behind in the backyard or abandoning them on the side of the road.
Before would-be renters take that "no pets permitted" sign too much to heart- here’s my recommendation: ASK.
When I sold my home in 2005, I was worried that finding a suitable rental for a family of seven with a bunch of pets would be a problem. My short list of desirable properties consisted of two properties that both said "no pets" on the listing. The rental market was glutted though, so not only did my landlord agree to the pets, but they agreed to a rent 20% lower than their asking price just to get the place rented out.
The current landlord also had a "no pet" policy. He initially said no to our two dogs, cat, rabbit, hermit crabs and fish– but a substantial deposit allayed his worries.
The current rental market is soft in many areas of the country. Good renters [or any renters] are often hard to come by. Many landlords will accept additional deposits, or letters from friends/family/landlords that your pets are in fact housebroken and don’t tear the house up.
Additional note:
IF YOU CANNOT KEEP YOUR PET- DON’T WAIT UNTIL THE LAST MINUTE TO MAKE ARRANGEMENTS FOR IT.
I spoke with a woman who works with animal rescue who was nearly in tears. She said she kept hearing from people only a day or two before they were moving, and she couldn’t possibly help at that point. Her question, "These folks have known for a month or more they couldn’t keep this dog. Why didn’t they place an ad in the paper, or Craigslist, or even call me 30 days ago so I had a little time to help?"
It’s hard enough on people to go through foreclosure- pets shouldn’t have to go through it as well.
Mish's Global Economic Analysis
Northern Virginia Housing Bubble Fallout
Bubble Meter
UK House Bubble
Ohio Fraudclosure
Breaking News Relevant Articles© Copyright 2012 Housing Doom | Copyright© 2011, AuthentiCraft, Inc.
There are two sides to this story. The other side is that there are more than a few irresponsible pet owners among the ranks of tenants.
In my own neighborhood, I’m dealing with a nearby rental that, at any given time, has three or four dogs that bark at EVERYTHING going by. Doesn’t matter if it’s a bicyclist or a pedestrian, they bark like there’s no tomorrow. Makes for a nice, quiet, relaxing neighborhood — NOT.
I hired a lawyer to write a letter to the tenants and their landlord. This prompted the landlord (who used to live at this property) to come to my lawyer’s office and ask for tips on dealing with these tenants. Apparently, they’d been causing him problems, and he’d been trying to get them to move out.
Well, that was almost a year ago, and my lovely neighbors (and their hounds of hell) still live down the street.
A month ago, I saw Mr. Landlord cooling his heels on the sidewalk outside the property (which has a wall around it). The dogs were going ballistic, and he wisely chose not to tangle with them.
Last I saw of Mr. Landlord, he was still out on the sidewalk, talking on a cell phone, and not looking too happy. Methinks that he was trying to collect rent, and that he wasn’t successful.
Something tells me that if he rents this house again, he’ll be more careful about whom he chooses as tenants. And I wouldn’t be surprised if he follows my lawyer’s advice and puts a “no pets” clause into his rental agreement.
Don’t blame the animals Slim. There are more than a few bad tenants in all stripes, with kids and without, pet owners and not, wealthy and impoverished, employed and not… I’ve spoken to several landlords who told me that they actually preferred pet owners because they are generally much more responsible and reliable than others, and the problem cases are few and far between. (Full disclosure: I am a dog owning renter who has never had a dog damage an apartment in 20 years, and so admittedly biased and irritated with landlords who assume the worst of pets and pet owners. On the other hand, in the process of renting my mother-in-law’s house, we have had several renters fail to pay, steal things from the house, and damage the place – none of them had pets.)
Two nights ago, I was denied a night of restful sleep because these dogs were left outside to bark
and bark
and bark
and bark
and bark
and bark
and bark
and bark
and bark
and bark
and bark
and bark
and bark
Say what you want about not blaming the dogs, but it was their noise that kept waking me up.
For more information on the problems caused by nuisance barking, see:
BarkingDogs.net
DogAssault.com
I too know some people who do animal rescue and re-homing of animals, they are some of the nicest and caring people I know.
You almost have to spend the little bit it costs to do a criminal background check on everyone you do business with these days.
Jim,
I was thinking the exact same thing. As I see rentals with no pets allowed it seems somewhat counter-intuitive. I would want renters that have some added responsibility. Not that those without don’t, it just seems the numbers of responsible renters would be higher. I’m even seeing big deposits and $100-200 a month more for pets. That said,it is their property.
Slim-
I always wonder how folks like that sleep- I have a neighbor with similar dogs, but thank heaven their house is far enough away from mine that it doesn’t disrupt my sleep. The neighbors are homeowners with a large beautiful home.
Irresponsible jerks come in all shapes, sizes, color, gender, ethnic origin- you name it. I agree with Jimatlaw- with or without pets, these folks make us miserable.
And while it might have been the dogs who were barking, responsible owners make sure it stops.
I bought a puppy that was turning into a monster dog years ago, and I didn’t have a clue what to do with her. I finally signed her up for obedience classes and we both got a lot smarter. She went from “monster dog” to being a delightful companion.
I’d blame the neighbors, not the dogs.
Slim – Have you called your local Dept. of Animal Control?
This should be your first step – leaving dogs outside barking all night is often a violation of municipal code(s), and you can get the animal’s owner cited. (I’m a dog lover, to say the very least, and I have done this.)
It usually only takes one or two tickets for someone to take the 5 seconds to bring their dogs inside at night.
Jim, I’m in Tucson, Arizona, and, yes, I have tried to get relief through our local animal complaint resolution system. And I got none whatsoever.
Here’s what we Tucsonans have to go through if there’s a problem with a barking dog:
The first step you are to take is to make a complaint to Pima County Animal Care, which then sends you and the dog owner a letter.
This letter includes suggestions that the dog owner can implement to quell the barking. The letter also advises you, the complainant, to give the owner 7-10 days to work things out, and, if that doesn’t work, you can go to mediation.
Then, if mediation fails, you can contact Animal Care for an official barking log, which they can use to cite the owner of the dog. Which means that, in the meantime, you’ve had to put up with a lot of nuisance barking.
My comments on the above system:
Letters: If the writing of letters to encourage people to get control of their barking dogs works so well, then why do so many parts of this city sound like a kennel? And offering suggestions to irresponsible dog owners is useless. Enforcement with penalties is what’s really needed.
Mediation: Personally, I think that mediation is a waste of time, because it is between a law-breaker and a victim. Mediation assumes some kind of reasonableness on either side. Might as well mediate with a burglar. The problem is that the authorities keep viewing dog barking abuse as “a neighborhood dispute”, which it is not. It is one person assaulting another.
Barking logs and citations: By the time things get to this point, you, the complainant, have already had to put up with a lot of barking. And there’s nothing that guarantees that an irresponsible dog owner, and Tucson has far too many of those, will be deterred by a citation and a fine.
I would like to conclude by saying that I have no problem with well-behaved dogs. They are a joy to their owners, and to everyone else around them. A dog that behaves well is one that the owner went to the time and trouble to train. On the other hand, dogs that are incessant barkers are nuisances that deprive the rest of us of our peace of mind and the enjoyment of our property.
I don’t blame the landlords for not wanting pets. How does one judge by a rental application if prospective tenants care for their pets properly? Do they clean up after them so the place doesn’t stink? Do they train and socialize them properly so they do create a nightmare nuisance for others? Especially in an apartment complex where people are living so close. There is no telling the kinds of horror stories I’m sure many of these landlords face when they don’t have pet restrictions. I can certainly understand the problems people face when dealing with foreclosure, BUT adopting pets and choosing to have pets is a lifetime commitment. Would they give up their children? The problem with these irresponsible owners is the pets are throw-away when their lifestyles change and what we have these days is a BAD PET OWNERSHIP EPIDEMIC. There needs to be better laws to control and restrict pet ownership. It seems to be a free-for-all process and the rest of society pays. The pets don’t deserve this careless treatment and the victims of bad ownership don’t deserve the inconvenience.
Oy vey. Sounds like Tuscon has a non-zero-effort system for dealing with these complaints, although with mediation, you’ve got to think about all sides.
I’ve had a neighbor make complaints not about my dog, but about other things (e.g., a downstairs neighbor complaining that it made noise when I walked around at night – what was I supposed to do, not walk around in my own apartment?), and it’s certainly conceivable that someone could make less than entirely reasonable complaints. (It’s not like a dog should never bark, and I’m sure they see situations where someone complains unfairly about it.)
Then again, you’re certainly right about mediation being wasteful in clear cut cases, and if the dog is barking nonstop in the middle of the night, they should be able to send someone out, right freaking now, to record and stop it. If nothing else, the cops should be able to come out and issue a citation for disturbing the peace. Have you tried calling them about a disturbance, or (DISCLAIMER: NOT LEGAL ADVICE) in the alternative, cranking up your stereo or speaking with a bullhorn right outside their house at 3am to make the point?
Heck, before you get to the “bad place,” have you tried speaking with the neighbor directly?
I know people tend to want to avoid confrontation, but as a preliminary matter, if you’re nice about it, you might make surprising progress by asking very nicely for them to bring the dogs in at night because it’s keeping you from sleeping. Just be sure to carry a tape recorder in your pocket and record them just in case they admit it and tell you to f— yourself (this will go over really well if they then deny everything in mediation).
The root cause is the owner of the dog. The dog should be in the house most of the time. The owners are responsible. Just like parents are responsible for their children (a lot of them are not).
Surak-
I’m with you. 99% of the time- show me a bad dog, and I’ll show you a bad owner.
toysarefun-
“You almost have to spend the little bit it costs to do a criminal background check on everyone you do business with these days.”
I’d actually strongly recommend against them, based on my personal experiences. I moved a while ago, and was having a very hard time finding a rental. Everything was going great, then they would cancel at the last minute. I had one house that looked wonderful, and the gal really needed a renter. I offered a $20,000 cash deposit, and still couldn’t get the place.
Turns out that the background check is bogus – mine shows that I was born nearly 30 years before I actually was (fortunately – makes things easier), and that I have 15 felony convictions in Missippi (where I’ve never been), for Drug Trafficking.
Nobody wants to rent to a drug dealer. It’s just a shame for the landlords that they didn’t rent out the place to someone who would have taken excellent care of the property.
Anti-spam word: Nogood
I’d ask who makes these things (anti-spam words) up, but the answer is me. Go figure.
Admin – There are laws regarding the treatment and use of these records, and it sounds like the reporting company and/or the landlords may have been violating them. Did you attempt to check/clear your record? If I were you, I would – and make damned sure that it’s a record-keeping error on your credit report or in the company’s database, rather than someone impersonating you.
I’ve had someone get arrested posing as me, giving my name and social, etc., and subsequently had to prove on multiple occasions that I was not the person they had arrested, but this wasn’t the fault of any reporting agency – it was the police, who just took someone without ID’s word as to who they were, when if they’d bothered to run the prints, they would have found out he was lying. (He’d been arrested in that very same station repeatedly!)