To think that people with pets get a raw deal in the lettings market?

[Vallhala]

I live in a privately rented house and as a dog and cat owner as well as a mum am lucky enough to have a fantastic landlord who is happy to let his lovely house to someone with both pets and children. However, finding a suitable home was a nightmare. So many landlords I approached just wouldn't entertain the idea of letting to people with pets. Agencies were even worse, to the point of rudeness.

Today I have learned of a man who owns a well behaved dog. He have been consistantly rejected by private landlords and/or their agents because of his dog and has had to take his best pal to rescue as a result.

This may not seem relevent to MN because this seperated gentleman's DC will remain in the family home with Mum but there are plenty of families who experience the same problem. But what IS the problem?

I have in the past(and have advised others) to offer an increased deposit, extra rent, written assurance of carpet cleaning, rented home insurance especially tailored for pet owners and personal references from professionals related to the species who know the family and their pet/s and yet still we have faced knockback after knockback from landlords.

Isn't it time that landlords started to look at these offers seriously and consider them on a case by case basis instead of rejecting the proposal of pets in their houses out of hand? Heaven knows, when a family is moving, especially as a result of marital breakdown, children need all the comfort and continuity they can get and the loss of a much-loved pet on top of their already upset lives can be heartbreaking.

Landladies (and landlords), please take time to consider prospective pet owning tenants as individual cases.

i redecorate a bit between tenants but there's no way i'm replacing the CARPETS every tenant!! i've had one for two years, one for one year and my third has been in about 18months now - no way am i changing capets every year!!

I wouldn't mind paying a bit extra to keep my pets. It's a give and take thing.

It's a difficult problem, whichever way you're looking at it. Our family owns a few properties which are let, one of which is a house divided into two flats. For those flats, we use a lettings agent who has been brilliant in giving us advice prior to advertising the lets, and found wonderful tenants for us. The advice the lettings agent gave us was to not allow pets. We took that advice because we had spent a lot of money bringing those two flats up to expected standards - which also involved a family row about those standards, which for me was whether I would want to live there.

Our lovely downstairs tenants are students; our lovely upstairs tenants include a teenager who is seriously into music. No problems with any of them - and we would know as we live next door.

For another property the family owns, the rent is paid through Housing Benefit so we know how the system works. That tenant is also lovely.

So, for us:
Students - OK
Teenage music fan - OK
Housing Benefit - OK

But for pets, it's a different thing. DH and I know about cats, our co-owners know about dogs. So we both know about flea problems and animal hairs, and one of our co-owners suffered asthma as a child which had an impact on his education.

I'm just going to put this question into the back of my mind, until the next time. Then I'll suggest to the other co-owners that we allow our lettings agent, who is also lovely but more importantly a great reader of people, to put forward to us possible recommendations for the ground-floor flat/garden including a tenant+animal and maybe we could be sufficiently open-minded as to whether that could work.

Good point to raise, Valhala.

And for everybody who has lied - please, please reveal the truth once you've got all your references and signed up your new tenancy. If any of our tenants had done that, we'd probably swear, but at least we'd know what to do to make the property into a fit state for the next people to regard as their home.

I am going to ask a question on this thread seeing as there are so many other landlords here, if you dont mind, Valhalla.

My tenants have just asked me if I mind if they install locks to their bedroom doors. (Students sharing - photography students with expensive equipment)
Are there any issues I should be aware of in regards to this, as a landlord? Fire regulations? etc? I am concerned with for example a fire breaking out, and a tenant has locked herself into her bedroom, the key falls out and cant be seen through smoke, etc. Or is this not my concern at all? As it is a shared house, rather than individual bedsits, does this make a difference?

I can start another thread, if that is preferred.

I remember living in a place, where there was a distinct smell of cat piss in one area. Never did manage to entirely get rid of it; not fun, irritating

Nope not happening. I find it really bizarre bu round here landlords would rather rent out their 4/5 bed houses to students than a family with dogs. We are about to move from our current home, we are spending £400 on cleaners, carpet steam cleaners and a handyman to repair a tiny amount of damage to a small area of paintwork. Surely as long as the rental property is returned in the same condition in which it was leased there is no real harm.

"Surely as long as the rental property is returned in the same condition in which it was leased there is no real harm."

True but the problem is often that deposits are not high enough to cover significant damage to property if people aren't responsible- i.e. if carpets or furniture have to be replaced, floors sanded down etc.

A lot of tenants do just clean the house normally and then wait for the LL to come back to them and say "you need to steam clean those curtains and my sofa smells of cat wee."

QS - can you ask your lettings agent?

My only experience of renting to students was through the university and they had very tight regulations on fire doors, escape access from third floor etc.
I don't know whether by installing locks you are essentially saying that it isn't a shared house any longer, in which case you might find that you're looking at putting a fire escape in or something.

If the house as a whole is secure and everyone is remembering to lock the door then surely there isn't a problem - unless they don't trust each other! Could they get lockable cupboards/cabinets for their rooms to put cameras, lenses etc in?

I owned a house which I rented out. I tried to be a good landlady, and when they asked if they could have pets I agreed. When they moved out, the house was riddled with fleas. The man from Rentokil said he'd never seen an infestation so bad. Took them three times of fumigating to get rid of them and in the meantime I went into the house and then the fleas got into my car, into my clothes ..... I would never allow pets again if I rented out a property. Nothing against the pets, just that they can cause a lot of damage.

We used to let out a house and specified no pets.

I'm sure you are a responsible owner, but I'm afraid many aren't.

If it's a HMO then surely the council have been round to check that you already have locks on the doors, fire doors, fire closures, smoke alarms (hardwired and in each room), heat alarm in the kitchen and suitable windows or other means of escape. Check with your council what the requirements are.

I had the same problem. I have a strict no pets policy but even so the tenant got a cat. I only found out just before she was leaving. The next tenants complained about being bitten by fleas so I had to get the council out to fumigate. By this time I had returned the deposit and had to pay for the fumigation myself.

QS I remember your thread a while back when you were first letting your lovely house and were having misgivings about the tenants. Sorry to hear your fears were justified.

We have caged pets (couldn't possibly damage the property) but still struggle to find anyone that will take us. We've even offered to pay a higher deposit, but still heard no.

Part of the problem I think is that some people who live with animals either cease noticing there's a smell, or claim they do! I looked at a room that the owner was renting out while he moved, and as it had a distinct smell of dog I asked when it was going to be cleaned. He claimed it had been professionally done over (and it looked pretty clean), and that there was no smell.

I guess he could have been putting it on but my impression is that he simply couldn't smell dog any more as he was so used to it. Not nice.

Possibly this is one reason why agents don't like it?

We have pets and rent and have never had a problem finding a home and a lovely one at that, but that may be beacause we live in a very rural area where most people have pets. We always have carpets professionally cleaned and willingly pay an extra deposit. We also rent unfurnished places. My DH also works from home so our animals are not left unsupervised for long periods.

It is very unreasonable to lie about not having pets, you are in someone elses property so they have the right to set the rules.

I was very lucky with my landlord who has basically given us free reign on the house (providing we knock down no walls) now the last person to rent the house had no pets was a young professional and the state the house was left in was disgusting (fag burns in the black, supposed to be orange carpet) it was completly filthy, however I have a LOT of pets but we have cleaned the house up, redecorated and generally made the place a lot better, even raised the value of the house should he decide to sell in the future.
I guess my point being that you cannot ever gurantee what your tenants are going to be like so to disciminate against pets is unfair.

This is a very old thread that's been bumped.

We're having to buy a house because the lettings agents around here now are being so lazy as rental property's in such massive demand since no one dares buy(!) that they won't even place a phonecall to landlords to see if they'd consider a pet.

Our middle-aged three legged feline amputee is a non negotiable part of our family - I simply didn't want to view a house and sign an application contract, running up the initial fees - without being sure they'd accept her... apparently that's unreasonable, so we're having to stretch ourselves to the limit to buy. (Tripod's never had fleas, doesn't destroy anything - that would require moving from the sofa, in fact is the laziest furball known to humanity... fits in well with the husband really!).