My partner and I are halfway through the application process and everything was going extremely well - we both work with children for a living already, are financially stable, have a nice home in a nice area, we returned all paperwork before the deadlines and our social was about to request to move our panel date forward, and when we had our first health and safety check there were initially no issues. Then out of the blue we received a text from our social worker saying something along the lines of ‘actually, I’ve been thinking about your animals, and the fact that the cages are in the dining room might be a health hazard.’ We have a single rat and a group of degus (and two rabbits, but they live in the utility room). All of their food and supplies are stored away in a cupboard separate to the kitchen.
Both the social worker and the agency knew what pets we had from the offset, and we’ve even had conversations about where the pets are kept and the social worker herself was saying how soft she is with her own animals and her dog is allowed on the beds, etc. The cages are kept clean, their designs mean that there isn’t really any mess escaping the cage, and we hoover any fleck that does escape straight away. We’ve already filled in the pet assessment questionnaires and thoroughly checked the health and safety guidelines on pets and it doesn’t mention areas of the house the animals cannot be other than in the child’s bedroom, for obvious reasons. The cages are not on the table or near the kitchen counters, so surely they are less of a hygiene risk than dogs or cats that access every room freely? I mean, cats use litter trays and then hop onto the kitchen counters! We were told from the offset that small caged mammals shouldn’t present an issue at all, so this has come out of the blue and really upset us as there is nowhere else our large, custom made set-up will fit, so it’s a case of they cave on this or we give up on the entire idea. This would be a heartbreaking outcome as it matters greatly to us, but our animals are a part of the family.
Does anybody have any experience with this? Have any of you been turned down for hygiene reasons having pets (not temperament reasons) or do you think she is just being over-cautious and a bit picky?