According to the Los Angeles Times, 70% of all apartment renters in the United States own pets. However, in the same post, they mention that two-thirds of pet owners struggle to find pet-friendly apartments. But why don’t apartments allow pets? Here’s what you need to know:
Some apartments don’t allow pets solely because of the landlords or investors of the building. It’s because they believe pets can damage the apartment unit, increase liability risk, make additional noise, and bring unwanted odors. Therefore, to reduce the costs of repairs and unhappy tenants, many apartments don’t allow pets.
After reading the above, you can quickly visualize why apartment owners don’t allow pets. In the real estate world, it’s all about sustainability and profit.
Because of this, the fewer maintenance costs and unsatisfied tenants that occur, the better. To understand the reasoning behind this, I suggest you become familiar with the following.
Reasons Why Some Apartments Don’t Lease To Pet Owners
Pets are best friends that we usually don’t realize until owning one. We imagine that the last thing you thought about when becoming a pet owner was probably running into complications of renting or purchasing an apartment.
I know many individuals who encountered the same issue, but why don’t some apartments allow pet owners?
Potential Damages
Undoubtedly, landlords don’t allow pets solely because of the potential damages they could cause. Although this doesn’t affect those looking to buy an apartment, renting is a much different story.
If the landlord has recently renovated their apartments, it’s clear why they wouldn’t want pets inside them.
Cats, dogs, or even monkeys, are known to scratch furniture, flooring, or walls, potentially damaging their integrity, coat, or polish. Ultimately this can reduce the property’s value, which is why many apartment owners don’t allow pets.
Excessive Noise
Additionally, an apartment block will have precisely set rules throughout the entire building. Although a landlord may own an apartment unit, it doesn’t necessarily mean they own the whole block.
Because of this, the initial investors of the apartment will need to outline rules to suit a particular target market. For example, some apartment buildings are specially built for seniors as they’re generally more neighbor-friendly than the younger generation, and the same follows for pets.
Pets can make a lot of noise, whether they’re attended to or unattended. For people who aren’t fond of pets, this can seem like a nuisance. Therefore, to eliminate the issues of complaining tenants, they don’t allow pets.
Health Hazards
Regardless of how person-friendly your pet is, you never know when it could potentially cause health hazards to another tenant.
Whether this is a playful bite, an allergy, or anything else similar, this needs to be considered when developing the apartment block—because of this, ruling out pets could reduce the amount of possible legal problems the owners could face.
Unwanted Odor
Everybody loves their pets, and that’s why they own them. However, this doesn’t mean that all pets have had adequate training.
According to Dogster, less than five percent of dog owners in the US attended a training class with their beloved pet. Although many pets, like dogs, can be self-taught most of the time, it doesn’t mean all can.
Therefore, many apartments deny pets because of the unwanted odor they could produce. Odors like pet mess (liquid or solid) can quickly form into a permanent unwanted odor if it works in the carpets, sofa, or other soluble fabrics.
Extra Renovation Costs
To conclude the above, the primary purpose of not allowing pets into an apartment building is renovation costs. In most instances, after you move out of an apartment, a landlord will make it presentable again before trying to find tenants on the market.
During this process, they could renovate the floor, paint the walls, make sure the plumbing is up to date, etc.
As we mentioned above, pets can cause additional damages to an apartment. It’s normal; they’re pets at the end of the day.
However, a landlord doesn’t want to pay for them, meaning not letting them live within the apartments could save them some money.
Why Do Some Apartments Allow Pets?
After becoming knowledgeable on why apartments don’t allow pets, why are there some that do? Here’s what you need to know:
- As discussed, 70% of all apartment residences in the United States own pets. Allowing pets on the property provides landlords with a significantly larger group of tenants, making finding renters much more straightforward.
- Additionally, this study states that landlords and property managers agree that pet-owners typically lease their rentals for more extended periods than those without pets. Therefore, if apartment owners are looking for longer-term tenants, allowing pets can help this substantially.
- Lastly, because there’s such a high probability of renters sneaking pets into their apartments, they might as well agree to allow them to live there.
What Should You Do If You Already Have a Pet?
Wherever your next apartment is, your pet is coming with you.
We completely understand this, and many others also. But, without losing too much hope, you could maneuver yourself around this obstacle and potentially move into a pet-allowing apartment by implementing the below tips:
- Since landlords are incredibly concerned about additional renovations and potentially losing tenants over pets, offer to pay extra for a security deposit. Although you’ll pay more costs while signing a tenancy agreement, it doesn’t mean you lose your money completely. When your contract ends, and you move out, they’ll evaluate the damages your pet may or may not have caused. If no damages are presented, you’ll receive your security deposit back.
- Including the above, create a pet resume. Although this might sound questionable, it follows the same characteristics as any other resume. It allows the landlord to be introduced to your pet, know about its past training and how it won’t harm his property. For an example of a pet resume, check out this PDF.
- Suppose all fails, it’s best to find an apartment that straight up allows pets. When looking for an apartment, aim to only search for those happily allowing pets without the additional paperwork.
After reading the above, you should now understand the reasoning behind why some apartments don’t allow pets. Including this, we’ve also added some helpful tips for finding apartments that will enable you to live with your beloved pets.
It’s much easier than you might think; you just need to understand some core fundamentals about the situation.