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cats are the worst. My opinion is that if renters want to have pets, fine. But the owners should be allowed to collect 10x the normal deposit amount, then allowed to use it to rip out the carpet and the flooring under it and any anything else needed to make the place habitable for the next renter coming in. Not to mention the extra time it's going to take to do so, as that process will probably take longer than a month.
Honestly, if renters compensated for the entire cost of fixing the place after they vacate it plus the extra time the place it was vacant, there would be a lot more owners willing to rent to people with pets. But, as that isn't the case, you really cant blame the owners for not wanting to fork over a ton more money out of their pocket to deal with the renters mess after they leave.
You want to talk about "fair"? Buy your own place, and do what you like with it. Or deposit 10x rent money up front and sign a contract stating that you will be responsible for the full cost of cleanup after you leave. Approach potential landlords with those incentives, and I'm sure youll find some that will take you up on the offer.
"But the owners should be allowed to collect 10x the normal deposit amount"
Most states limit the amount of deposit that can be charged to be no more 1 month's worth of rent. Some states allow a landlord to get first and last months rent, plus one month's worth of deposit. Some states don't specify exactly which months are first, or last, or deposit, but do limit the aggregate to be no more than two months worth of rent as the max due prior to move in.
I lived in an apartment and they charged me an extra $50/month to have my dog there. It was one of those apartments that was already trashed by the previous tenant's pets and the landlord refused to replace the gross carpet etc, but I didn't have a choice because I was living in a town with non-existent vacancy rates. Even though I well documented the existing conditions before I moved in, they kept my deposit. The owner who made the decision lived 900 miles away and never saw the carpet before or after, so when I lost the deposit I wasn't surprised, and it wasn't enough money to be worth the aggravation to contest. I chalked the expense up to the cost of pet ownership.
I only stayed there long enough to save enough money for my first home purchase. Now I live on a farm on AG zoned land.
Since we're sharing stories... I'm no longer a landlord, but when we had to move to the mainland for 2 years, we rented out our house. It had wood floors (Douglas fir?) in the living room and quality--but aged--carpet in the bedrooms. We are animal people and allowed 2 different renters with dogs. The first ones had 2 medium dogs and we didn't imagine how bad they would scratch up the old wood floors. It wasn't any real damage, just dog claws on wood, but they roughed it up badly. Still, the local manager gave back the deposit (since just wear and tear of dogs), so lesson learned.
The second tenant we allowed a small dog (floors already in bad shape, smaller dog can't hurt them more). We came back to Kauai to visit, tenant gave us permission to enter and even asked us to feed the dog since they were away for the night. No problem, until we found that the dog regularly pooped on the carpet in the bedroom. Tenants said it was always "dry" poop (carpet didn't actually look dirty) and they would steam clean it when they left. Regardless, before we moved back, my wife insisted on ripping out all the carpet, and then because there were old wood floors underneath, we had the 3 wood floors (over half the house) sanded down and refinished. Total labor and supplies was over 10K--at least we have nice wood floors in the bedrooms now.
What a terrible story. I can certainly understand why you'd have a "No Pets" policy given those past experiences. In all honesty I'd probably be the same way if I had to drop 10K on new flooring because of a dog's toe nails. I guess the best solution is to not get a dog or cat until you're able to afford a home or lock-in a long-term, pet-friendly rental, at least in the Hilo rental market.
I got my dog on the mainland in a city with a much higher rental vacancy rate. We lived in several rentals and never had a problem finding one that allowed dogs. It seems when there's a surplus of rentals landlords are a lot more willing to consider a pet in order to get their property filled. From what I can tell Hilo (and Hawaii) has a pretty severe lack of rentals, particularly affordable rentals at the moment. It also seems like it's gotten worse. I was looking for a place when I first moved here about 1.5 years ago. It took awhile -- about 2 months -- but it was not as bad as now. For example, I attended an open house for a 2-bedroom house in Hilo recently. The carpet was torn up and the walls chipped and dented. It was in a rougher part of downtown. Despite all that, at least 20 people were at the open house. I contacted the landlord the next morning and the property had already been filled. Craziness!
For me, my story has a happy ending. I found a very nice lady who owns a plantation home in Papaikou. She's OK with pets because it's an older home anyway. I'll be renting it with a co-worker who also owns a cat. I'm happy things worked out the way they did. With my current place, I plan to get it professionally cleaned before I move out. Even then, if my landlord keeps the pet deposit, I would certainly understand.
cats are the worst. My opinion is that if renters want to have pets, fine. But the owners should be allowed to collect 10x the normal deposit amount, then allowed to use it to rip out the carpet and the flooring under it and any anything else needed to make the place habitable for the next renter coming in. Not to mention the extra time it's going to take to do so, as that process will probably take longer than a month.
Honestly, if renters compensated for the entire cost of fixing the place after they vacate it plus the extra time the place it was vacant, there would be a lot more owners willing to rent to people with pets. But, as that isn't the case, you really cant blame the owners for not wanting to fork over a ton more money out of their pocket to deal with the renters mess after they leave.
You want to talk about "fair"? Buy your own place, and do what you like with it. Or deposit 10x rent money up front and sign a contract stating that you will be responsible for the full cost of cleanup after you leave. Approach potential landlords with those incentives, and I'm sure youll find some that will take you up on the offer.
Yep, fair enough. I can certainly understand why it's less ideal to rent to someone with a pet.
What a terrible story. I can certainly understand why you'd have a "No Pets" policy given those past experiences. In all honesty I'd probably be the same way if I had to drop 10K on new flooring because of a dog's toe nails. I guess the best solution is to not get a dog or cat until you're able to afford a home or lock-in a long-term, pet-friendly rental, at least in the Hilo rental market.
I got my dog on the mainland in a city with a much higher rental vacancy rate. We lived in several rentals and never had a problem finding one that allowed dogs. It seems when there's a surplus of rentals landlords are a lot more willing to consider a pet in order to get their property filled. From what I can tell Hilo (and Hawaii) has a pretty severe lack of rentals, particularly affordable rentals at the moment. It also seems like it's gotten worse. I was looking for a place when I first moved here about 1.5 years ago. It took awhile -- about 2 months -- but it was not as bad as now. For example, I attended an open house for a 2-bedroom house in Hilo recently. The carpet was torn up and the walls chipped and dented. It was in a rougher part of downtown. Despite all that, at least 20 people were at the open house. I contacted the landlord the next morning and the property had already been filled. Craziness!
For me, my story has a happy ending. I found a very nice lady who owns a plantation home in Papaikou. She's OK with pets because it's an older home anyway. I'll be renting it with a co-worker who also owns a cat. I'm happy things worked out the way they did. With my current place, I plan to get it professionally cleaned before I move out. Even then, if my landlord keeps the pet deposit, I would certainly understand.
I guess the best solution is to not get a dog or cat until you're able to afford a home or lock-in a long-term, pet-friendly rental, at least in the Hilo rental market.
That is correct. I guess this would be far less of an issue if the pets were all outdoor animals, but once indoors, it really does cause huge issues for landowners. If you do own a dog/cat that stays outdoors exclusively, you can try to mention this to the landlord to see if they'd be willing to rent to you. A positive referral from a previous landlord would help as well.
And if you really want to own a pet, and don't want to have to deal with all these reluctant landlords, then you should own your own property, and do with it as you will. If you're just renting a property, you really cannot get upset at someone placing stipulations on the rental, especially if you're not willing to pay the full costs of your decisions on how to use the property. And if you were willing to pay for it, and sign a contract stating such, and placed 10k-15k in escrow to cover potential damages, I'm 100% sure you'll have many willing potential landlords. The reality is, tenants leaves property owners holding the bag, hence their reluctance to accept pets.
Good morning everyone! I currently live in California and plan to relocate to the BI in the next year...partly due to the fact I have to get my 155 pound mastiff puppy ready and he still is due for his second set of rabies shots and we need to get rid of a household full of stuff first. Anyway, I have been a landlord and I rented my house in Vegas to someone I knew, no said no pets, but what do you do when your 900 miles away ( I was living in Oregon at the time ). My "friend" gave me less than a weeks notice before moving, and unbeknownst to me she had acquired a dog. The house was a disaster when I got there. Carpets filthy, dog hair 2 inches thick in the closets, under furniture, etc. we had rented the house furnished to her. She also allowed her boyfriend to move in which we were not aware of. Mind you, she was there about 13 months total. We arrived just hours after she left, driving down from Oregon. I just wanted to turn around, walk out the front door lock it and leave however the next morning I called someone to come in and steam clean the carpet's, steam clean all the tile floors, we threw out all of the furniture and I call the real estate agent and put the house on the market. I was done being a landlord 900 miles away without using a property management company. I would never ever ever own an investment property in another state without using a property manager. It would be different if I own a piece of property down the road, across town, the next city over. I could deal with that. I would definitely maintain a no pets policy even though I have a big dog. When we relocate, we have no intention of renting, we already know the challenges with owning a dog and we have one that weighs more than a lot of people. We had, and I say had, beautiful hardwood floors in our house but they are scratched, we know we're going to have to give the credit to the buyer because of the flooring. Just the cost of selling it I guess.
What a terrible story. I can certainly understand why you'd have a "No Pets" policy given those past experiences. In all honesty I'd probably be the same way if I had to drop 10K on new flooring because of a dog's toe nails. I guess the best solution is to not get a dog or cat until you're able to afford a home or lock-in a long-term, pet-friendly rental, at least in the Hilo rental market.
I got my dog on the mainland in a city with a much higher rental vacancy rate. We lived in several rentals and never had a problem finding one that allowed dogs. It seems when there's a surplus of rentals landlords are a lot more willing to consider a pet in order to get their property filled. From what I can tell Hilo (and Hawaii) has a pretty severe lack of rentals, particularly affordable rentals at the moment. It also seems like it's gotten worse. I was looking for a place when I first moved here about 1.5 years ago. It took awhile -- about 2 months -- but it was not as bad as now. For example, I attended an open house for a 2-bedroom house in Hilo recently. The carpet was torn up and the walls chipped and dented. It was in a rougher part of downtown. Despite all that, at least 20 people were at the open house. I contacted the landlord the next morning and the property had already been filled. Craziness!
For me, my story has a happy ending. I found a very nice lady who owns a plantation home in Papaikou. She's OK with pets because it's an older home anyway. I'll be renting it with a co-worker who also owns a cat. I'm happy things worked out the way they did. With my current place, I plan to get it professionally cleaned before I move out. Even then, if my landlord keeps the pet deposit, I would certainly understand.
Glad it all worked out well for you. And sharing a house is great since it not only gets you lower rent but hopefully your coworker has lived here awhile and can be helpful with advice on how things happen around here.
They have open houses for RENTALS? How bizarre! I wonder how an open house for a rental would make sense in a tight rental market? Seems a lot of work for something that is going to rent anyway.
Glad it all worked out well for you. And sharing a house is great since it not only gets you lower rent but hopefully your coworker has lived here awhile and can be helpful with advice on how things happen around here.
They have open houses for RENTALS? How bizarre! I wonder how an open house for a rental would make sense in a tight rental market? Seems a lot of work for something that is going to rent anyway.
Yes it does seem strange. I've been to a few open houses/ showings for rentals here, actually. I asked one landlord why he does it like that and he said it's because he gets flooded with emails. He said it's easier to arrange a single showing with the current tenant (say, a four-hour period on a Saturday rather than several showings in a short amount of time). He said he then meets all the interested people, gives everybody an application and then picks whoever he likes best (after meeting all of them and processing the applications).
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