House woes. (May I rant?) - UPDATE

[Casper]

I wrote up a long post a few days ago about how much everything is going wrong lately. I ended up deleting it because I felt weird having it all out on the internet, but I am so fed up right now.

So, long story short my mother sold this house and my boyfriend and I have until closing date (29th of Nov) to find a new place to live. We might get 30 extra days, but its not confirmed. We have been searching for a new place since before the beginning of October and so far all we have gotten is false hope. As we expected, the majority of people we call about rentals say "no pets". The thing that gets me is the amount of people who say they will consider pets, we set up a day and time to view the house, and then on that day they either drop off the face of the earth and don't answer our phone calls or they tell us they have already rented it out to someone else.

We always recite the same info about how all of our pets are spayed and neutered, completely potty trained, Towser stays in his crate while we are gone, is being trained to be a therapy dog, doesn't bark, etc.

I hate it that people who are not responsible for their pets have ruined it for those of us who are. I told one lady that Towser is 100% potty trained (which he is) and she gave me a look like "yeah, right". One man was fine with a dog, but an "absolutely not" when asked if cats were okay. Apparantly the last tenant had an issue with their cat marking its territory. A lot of people are downright rude when telling you absolutely no pets. I understand, I am sure they have had a lot of problems with people not taking care of their property... I just wish they could see how well we keep our house. The vast majority of visitors think we only have 2 cats and a dog. We constantly get compliments that our house smells great, and that they never would have guessed that we have any animals in the first place.

What really gets me is we have a family friend who owns rentals with her husband. We have known her for years and years... at one point she was like a sister to me. She spent countless summers at our house and knows we take great care of our pets. They stated that they would waive their no pet policy for us when we began our search. That was when they had no rentals available. Now that they have two available, they make excuses like "we would rather rent to people who have kids". Seriously? SERIOUSLY? During the past month we have viewed dozens of places for rent, and the majority of ones that were rented by previous tenants that had kids have stained up carpets and crayon on the walls. I'm not saying all kids are like that, my mum would have never tolerated that nonsense.

We did go look at one yesterday where the couple seemed okay with pets. We chatted for a bit and I told the lady about how we use softclaws on our cats, which she really seemed to like the idea of (she is very against declawing, which is great). We are sending her our application on Monday and then fingers crossed from there... I sure don't have my hopes up, though.

Its insane. We have the money, we are good people, we don't party and we take great care of everything we own. Both of us are extremely clean people. Really, all we do is work our butts off and come home, clean, exercise the mutt, then hit the sack. We aren't asking for much, just a small place that can give us some peace of mind.

(Looks like this turned into a "life is not fair" pity party. Sorry about that.)

[Freedom]

I know from others how hard it is to find a rental when you have pets.

Have you posted on your local Craigslist, under the Pets section, asking if anyone can suggest a place? I know I see such postings on my CL on a regular basis. Of course, be prepared for the wackos to reply as well, but that may be one source for leads.

Don't be too hard on the friend -- my folks owned rental property and it is all but impossible to make an exception to the rules for one tenant and expect all the others to accept this.

I'm sure you have spoken with people at work to let them know you are looking.

Do you have a shelter near you? Sometimes they will know of places which allow pets -- after all, they won't adopt out to someone who lives where no pets are allowed. I've only just thought of this as I am brain storming for you, not sure if it is a source of leads or not.

I'm sure this is stressful, having a deadline and no place to go as yet. I'm also sure something WILL develop for you. Keep searching!

[chocolatepuppy]

I'll keep pawsitive thoughts going here that you find a place.

[wolf_Q]

That's so frustrating, I'm sorry. I know first hand the damage kids can do to rentals so if people think that pets are always worse they should think again. The house we bought had been a rental for years, I think since it was built. We had to tear out all the carpet, pad, and use special paint on the floor even in one of the kids rooms because the entire floor was literally soaked in urine. You could smell it the minute you walked in the door to the house, and this was an older kid like 8-10. The door had a lock from the outside so I think they were locking the kid in her room (maybe she was trying to run away? I don't know) and she was peeing in there all the time. Every bit of wall space 3 feet and below was covered in marker and crayon doodles....the entire house, blinds and doors too as well as doodles on the floor. They had two cockers that lived in the garage, I think they literally only lived in the garage I don't think they took them into the yard to potty so that was absolutely disgusting too, had to scrub the cement and it still smelled like a barn for months. So that was gross too but the kids room was worse. When we moved out of our old house into this one we decided to rent it instead of sell it and I advertised it as pets okay, not once did I think to not allow pets. Of course I was picky about how many pets and they had to be spayed/neutered. We got lucky and have awesome renters that take really good care of the house, they have two boxers and I have no problems with that. I pray they stay there for a really long time because you never know, it is hard to judge how the people will actually be. But I definitely wish people would give those that have pets a chance, it sucks that bad renters have given everyone a bad name when it comes to renting. Especially frustrating that someone who knows you and personally knows how clean you are won't give you a chance.

[Catty1]

The shelter idea is good - they often know of places.

Also, can you offer a pet deposit on top of any other deposit required? That may help.

Good luck with this!

[lizbud]

Don't know what your financial picture looks like but, it may be more feasible to buy than rent a house. You usually pay about the same or less
with a mortgage rather than rent. Rentals can be vary expensive depending on the area. As to renting with pets, my daughter was in that same situation
with one dog ( a pit mix) and was turned down everywhere until she got a letter from her Vet (our family Vet for years) attesting to the dog's good nature.
It worked for her.

[mrspunkysmom]

More pawsitive thoughts coming your way