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I am a renter with pets, and don't think landlords should be forced to accept renters with pets.
I also acknowledge that pets can do an insane amount of damage to a property if not properly cared for.
I helped my brother repair the damage from a squatter (long story) after he allowed 4 dogs to completely destroy the interior. We were sanding pee saturated studs and priming over them, after ripping out all of the drywall, just to try to defeat the stink.
That's more damage than any plausible pet deposit can hope to cover. It was absolutely disgusting.
People can also cause insane amounts of damage, that doesn't mean it's the norm. I'm sorry about your brother's property, but that's not a reason to allow banning of pets. Nightmare tenants (or squatters) exist, it's just the gamble taken for renting out an investment property. Most pet owners take care of their pets and have no serious problems, after all, they're actually living with the results of their pet care.
As someone who works in pest control and spends a lot of time in people's houses, especially those that are nasty and need my services, I assure you, most people live with the results of not only their lack of pet care, but their own. I've seen some shit and there's more nasty fucking people than you think. They don't even know they're nasty either, like it's my fault they have roach issues because they haven't admittedly cleaned their house in 17 years. (Not exaggerating)
You've got a sampling bias, because, as you mention, one of the main reasons people need your services is because they're nasty, and anything serious enough to impact the apartment's value is well outside of even that norm. Most people absolutely do not simply let their pets pee wherever they want, because they don't want to live that way.
True, but plenty of these people are quite well off and just simply don't notice it. I have a lot of clients who aren't actually nasty but their habits are. As the saying goes, it takes all kinds, I guess.
Not denying I have a sampling bias, but I've seen plenty of people who just seem oblivious to their lifestyle choices.
I installed internet into people houses for fifteen years. My sample is pretty broad. It is far nastier than most people realize. There majority is decent but it would be close to one in ten is very nasty then another one in ten that will have nice common 'public guest ' areas but when their basement and different story. It is really hard to tell from the outside and often the people seem normal. Hording is really common but then you get hording wet garbage as well.
I think it's a perfect reason to ban pets.
I do not owe you the house I paid for. You have to apply for it like everyone else and agree to the terms of my lease. If you don't like it, literally rent from anyone else, but you are not entitled to my property. Peroid.
Even small-time landlords are not typically paying for the house. They're just considered a better loan risk than the tenants.
I said that in the past tense for a reason. I paid off my house before moving and renting it out. That's not the bank's house, that's my house, and you are still not entitled to it.
And let me be clear, I don't care what the law is, I will continue to discriminate against my applicants for any reason that suits me. Do you have dogs, too many kids, or job hop too often? Then your application is going in the trash. I don't fucking need you, so come right if you're going to come at all.
If you don't agree with the terms society requires of landlords you are free to sell the property and invest in something else.
Bitch please. We are the society. Look at the god damn rent prices and tell me again what "we as a society" value.
We value landlords and existing homeowners wealth over the ability for people to live their lives.
Some of you soft bitches need to hear this. The world doesn't owe you sht. Fight for what you need, but blame yourself if you fail.
-- a landlord who feels entitled to half your paycheck for sitting on his ass
Except you actually don't get to unilaterally decide who can live in your house. You can't ban black people, you can't ban children, you can't ban the handicapped. And soon, if you live in California, you may not be able to ban pets. You live in a society, with rules for what you can and cannot do with the real estate you own.
And how do you realistically plan to enforce that? I have 100 applicants a month for 1 house that has never been vacant. If the current tennant ever decides to leave, how can you expect anyone to pick a potentially bad tennant when a potentially good one has the same right?
Again, that's an outlier and an anecdote.
I would wager that the average wear and tear exceeds $50+/mo or whatever the going rate is. The average animal will just wear things down stupidly fast. Rubbing on walls, carpet wear, stains, and then the extra thing every pet dies at least once, all adds up, and repair time and materials aren't cheap. I think OP's situation is probably in the more extreme side, but animals degrade property.
i've owned pets all my life. they've never wrecked anything, not potty in the house, rubbed on walls, stained or worn carpet. they did die, but what does that matter? it didn't do anything whatsoever to the house. and this seems to be the norm when i've visited others with pets too. for sixty years now.
Why do you think pets dying wears out your property? 4 people cause more wear than 2 which causes more wear than 1. Kids cause wear and tear and yet generally speaking rent is a singular figure based on the value of the property. Landlords usually buy the cheapest flooring they can get and clean it between tenants until it actually falls apart virtually always changing flooring between tenants for obvious reasons. You want to collect rent per month and then redo the cheap flooring as infrequently as you were already planning on. The only difference is that the flooring you intend to throw away will be slightly more worn when the tenant leaves not meaningfully increasing costs for you while you collected $600 a year.
I haven't rented in over a decade, and it's great. I will ideally never have to again. That said I 100% believe that landlords should have no obligation to allow pets, especially for free.
Outlier. Anecdotal. Do you actually have reliable statistics to say otherwise, or are you walrusing?
I mean, it's definitely anecdotal. But I agree neither of them are using actual stats to back up anything.
Renting houses, I would say half the pet owning renters would result in some pet related damage. A rug replacement or scratched wall. Repairable but not expensive. Then there would be one in ten that could do a significant amount of damage. Pee being the biggest one. A rug replacement is free thousand dollars. Let cats pee everywhere and you can have costs exceeding 40,000 dollars.
There is no real easy way to know which renter you have.
There are a lot of disgusting ass motherfuckers that let pets piss and shit wherever, and don't bother cleaning it. I don't understand how people are ok with a room of shit, but I've seen it house shopping more than once.
I would agree with you more if there wasn't such a housing shortage and an increasing number of properties being swallowed up by large rich renters.
It steadily means that people have little choices, and are forced not to be able to have pets in their lives. Something people have been doing with dogs and cats for thousands of years.
If there's a risk, renters should be required some reasonable cost or deposit to cover it (not something gouging).
Edit: in general, too, I think that the normal "rules" of capitalism should go out the window when we're talking about basic human needs like food, housing, or health care.