I don’t have a pet at the moment. Don’t get me wrong - I love animals, which is why I avoid them. I once bought a goldfish, and it lasted two hours (do you think I should have put some water in the bowl?) And so for me, renting is the best excuse not to have a pet (FYI – I’d love to own one of those miniature horses.)
Others are less considerate. People who live in flats exhibit a disturbing tendency to own creatures known as ‘house cats.’ To me this seems cruel: cats should be out stalking mice and fighting urban foxes, not sitting on a sofa eating custard creams and watching Loose Women.
The main problem however is that many landlords don’t allow pets of any kind which (here we go again) is different to the attitude of our wiser cousins on the continent, who allow tenants to treat their rented property like a home, part of which is owning a pet. I can understand that a rambling, shambling shared house with revolving doors and many occupants, each with a dog, would be un-manageable, but even in family homes, pets are forbidden.
But still people answer the call of the wild by buying a Chihuahua. In a shared student house, one, determined fellow tenant acquired an ‘illegal’ cat (pets were banned.) It had a habit of strolling in, bold as you like whenever the landlord came to visit, obliging us all to act outraged while claiming it belonged to a neighbour.
This worked well, until another housemate bought some zebra finches. It was like the circle of life: the devious cat managed to open the cage door, and devoured the little birds. Thing is we were all simultaneously horrified and grateful – those birdies made a vile squeaking noise, or else they squawked with fear.
The alternative, I suppose, is one of those nasty little dogs that live in a handbag and look like a furry pencil case, or more worryingly perhaps, resemble one of those humorous posing pouches I’ve been told about. But what is the ideal pet for a tenant? Gerbils? They are neurotic and they smell. Tortoises are banned as pets, and anyway – what’s the point – it’s like a matchbox toy with no wheels on, and they are dreadful at small-talk.
What harm can pets do – if looked after properly, they don’t make a mess (most animals are cleaner than many first year students, and I’ve been one) and if they scratch (puppies use doors as chewy toys) then the tenant can buy another door, or repair it.
Mostly I think it’s unfair to imprison animals in a flat – they all need space to roam, and dogs need a park to gad about in. Other than that, lizards and snakes should be banned due to being creepy, and because they eat rats. A friend once viewed a flat where the potential co-tenant introduced her to their pet tarantula. The ensuing screams curdled milk in the next town.
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Rats are pretty ideal. Intelligent, don't need a walk, and as clean as you keep them!
I almost got a cat, but moving from a ground floor to a second floor flat scuppered that one.
I think when you have pets in a house inevitably the cleanliness of it deteriorates. We have a dog and there is no way you can keep your house as clean before you have a pet as after, if it is a dog or cat.
"no pets, no children, no redecorating, no smoking, no life" renting in the UK is dismal.
I don't have much sympathy with the no smoking, but the others, but yep it's dismal living in a building, rather than a home. And you can clean up after pets have left, but smoking lingers. And kids should be allowed. No redecorating is starting to really annoy me too.
Quote:lizards and snakes should be banned due to being creepy, and because they eat rats
I think these should be encouraged because they eat the rats.
Its been quite hard finding a suitable place that will allow our cats and the kid on the way.
Can't blame anyone for any rules they have in the apartments they own. It should always be up to the owner. And if people with pets, kids, that smoked were a little more careful and treated others stuff like it was their own then maybe more people would allow these things.
@macon pets
I think you're missing the point. When someone rents from a landlord, the landlord's rights of entry cease and the flat or house is legally the tenant's home. Any damage caused can be (and always is) deducted from the security deposit.
Do you think that it should be otherwise?
I asked my landlady once if i could put a picture up. "But it will mean a hole in the wall, she said". And she got £250 a week off me.
@ macon pets - you'd probably get on well.
This isn't actually a joke but a friend of mine famously had a pet rat. I actually used to "rat sit" when she went home to the UK for the holidays. It was quite nice really. I have fond memories of an Aussie friend chasing it around the flat with tinfoil and the oven on at one point when money for food was rather tight. Luckily Ratty escaped intact.
The fact that people mention a pet ban in the line as ban on children says so much about the attitude of landlords. It's a home. We pay for a home, and we pay for normal use. We should (and indeed used to be allowed) put up pictures, and decorate etc. The landlord should (and again - used to) pay for the end of tenancy clean and give the place a lick of neutral paint.
If a dog has made a mess, then hoover up, closely. Open the windows.
As for lizards and snakes eating rats: I don't care about that, but I'd object to buying/catching supplying dead rats. Yuk.
Why not a buy a burger from the van outside the nightclub? Isn't that basically rat in a bread roll?
"The landlord should (and again - used to) pay for the end of tenancy clean and give the place a lick of neutral paint."
This is still supposed to happen - the tenant isn't supposed to be liable for wear and tear and isn't supposed to replace new for old (which I would assume applies to paintwork and carpets) but there is a very deliberate blurring of the definition of wear and tear and agencies in particular deduct as a matter of course even if (as I always have) the tenant leaves the place in a better condition than they found it. The post-exit cleaning often doesn't get done either.
They mainly get away with it because it's just a bit of extra bonus cash for them or their suppliers, but it's vital to the tenant who is going through an expensive house move and needs deposit for the next place, but I've decided not to put up with it any more - I have a deposit fund now which is set aside from my normal savings and cash flow and I will fight any attempt to make unreasonable deductions from my deposit.
Remember that under the TDS, in the event of a dispute all of the deposit is immediately returnable minus the sum disputed, and that it is illegal for the landlord to retain a deposit not placed in a deposit scheme.
Dazzla - you're so right. The TDS doesn't apply yet where I am now. Which is why they play fast and loose...
Seriously, Lizards should be banned. They are creepy and yuck.
Lets be honest though, the TDS doesn't really apply anywhere, does it? In theory it does, but not in practice. Unless your landlord is a complete dipstick, they can hold on to your deposit for as long as they like and as long as they're smart enough to protect before any court case, then they're laughing. There's no real compunction to protect a depopsit, because nobody is policing it and prosecuting the landlords who fail to protect deposits within 14 days.
It's a fairly useless piece of legislation and there's no real will to give it the teeth it needs. Maybe you can fight to get unprotected deposits back, but just think about the situations when you'd really need it. Good luck trying to get 3x your deposit (or even just the original amount) back from a landlord who's gone bust, when you're desperate for the cash because you've been given 28 days to find somewhere else to live ...
I would like to exchange links with your site rentergirl.blogspot.com
Is this possible?
It is possible to exchange links, provided they are relevant, that you post regularly and I like your site. That's all!
The TDS is good in theory, but there is still unfair pressure on tenants to actually enforce it. Friends of mine successfully took their ex-landlord to court due to unlawful witholding of their deposit, and got three times the original sum in return. However, the next time one of them tried to rent, the landlord who had been subject to the action gave her a crappy reference, and hey presto £300 holding deposit gone in a puff of smoke. I suspect this isn't an isolated case.
I have recently moved out of a rented flat and the landlord claimed £185 for cleaning costs from my deposit - the flat did not look like it was brand new, but nothing beyond what should be acceptable wear and tear. If a landlord pays for a professional cleaner out of every outgoing tenant's deposit, of course when the next person moves out the flat will look slightly lived in (almost like someone had been, y'know... living in it) and so the cycle continues....
I'm so very glad that despite earning good money I will be in hock to these people for the next decade, probably, taking me well into my late-thirties, due to living in one of the most expensive cities in Western Europe and not having 20 grand in my back pocket for a deposit on a modest flat. Makes my heart swell with pride....
different to the attitude of our wiser cousins on the continent, who allow tenants to treat their rented property like a home
And so I rented such a place once on the Continent. Fair 'nuf, we could have pets or whatever we wished in there (just no veggies in the garden, those not allowed by the regs!).
But when it came time to move out, if the carpets were not pristine, and the walls and overall smell as well, we were also responsible for returning that Continental flat to original (new) condition! Seriously.
There was big money to be made in redecorating rentals to new condition, and even though we got out cheap (no pets, very careful, full repaint, etc.) I'd thought at the time it's a good place to be a landlord. Lots of my friends lost deposits because it wasn't fixed up right.
Oh, and what was the deposit? Two months bloody rent it was! Ouch!
So yeh, if you want a cat to pee on yer floors, the Continent is the place to go because you can have it no sweat, just buy new carpet all round for the owner when you leave!
Might as well own the place, eh?
Rentergirl, I stumbled across your blog and have found it all very interesting, as somebody who has rented from a fairly wide spectrum of landlords over the past 5 years, its really appealed to me. Plus I've learnt a fair bit more about buy-to-let than I already knew.
i was wondering, have you ever come across the option of setting up a housing co-operative? Its basically where a group of people set up as a non-profit organisation to collectively buy a property. They can't profit from the sale of it later, but they get all the other benefits of owning property - effectively being their own landlord. Plus, because they can't benefit from the sale of the property, they can claim housing benefit.
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