Worried we will be evicted after inspection today

[MumshoutsaLOT]

I'm hoping that any landlords or anyone with a similar situation might be able to reassure me after my inspection today as I've convinced myself that I'm going to be evicted and I'm working myself into a panic.

Back story. We've rented our flat for almost 10 years. We keep it in immaculate condition and have never had any concerns from the landlord. We are settled here, this is our home and the kids are settled at school. The landlord charges us below market rate as we have been good tenants and look after the property. If we were to be evicted, we would be priced out the area and the prices have more than doubled since we've moved in. The thought of having to move my children from their school and support network is unbearable.

The property is managed through an estate agent (a pretty rubbish one) but the landlord is amazing and is always quick to act with any issues we've ever had. I.e. broken appliances, new carpets after 7 years as the old carpets were thread bare etc...

We had our annual inspection today and the house isn't up to the usual immaculate condition as we've all been loaded with this nasty flu the past few weeks. Nothing major, just some unwashed dishes on the worktop, unusually full landry baskets and the beds are unmade. The house basically lookes lived in rather than a show home like we usually keep it.

The main issue is that MIL has been in hospital with this nasty flu and we've had to bring her pet hamster to ours to take care of while she's not at home.

I hadn't even given it a second thought as it's cage is sitting in the corner and my husband is the one that cares for it.

the inspector immediately pointed out today that there's a no pets policy on our contract. This is true and something we've always followed as I don't like pets anyway or the smell of them. But he noted down that we have a hamster and I'm now terrified that they will evict us as they think they belong to us.

If you are a landlord, would you evict a Tennant in this situation? I feel so stupid for not even thinking about the cage sitting out when our contract bans pets in the home. Add that to the clutter lying around, I'm worried they will think we are not caring for their property they way we should be.

I wish I had just rescheduled the visit for when we were all recovered from this flu and the pet was back at MIL's

Thanks to all those that came on with helpful advice, It's appreciated. The hamster is gone now and I feel a lot more calm after the reassurances on here.

To all those telling me I should be worried about being evicted for low rent. I'm 99% certain that my landlord prefers having a stable long-term Tenants that maintain their property to a high standard, over a few extra hundred pounds per month.

I'm sure if they really needed the higher rent rates they would have put steps in place to evict us before now. These flats have such a high turnover due to the poor soundproofing, which I'm sure would likely have been an issue for our landlord and their tenants before we moved in. The noise doesn't bother us so we've settled in here and are the longest standing residents in the building.

I very much doubt they would risk a potential loss of income and another high turnover of Tenants over the stability we provide. Obviously if we were bad Tenants that would be a completely different issue and it would be an easy decision to get rid of us.