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California Bill Would Require Landlords to Accept Pets
(www.kqed.org)
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this post was submitted on 20 Feb 2024
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politics
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“Goolsby now has four dogs, seven cats, a fish and a bird.”
The woman in the article has over 10 animals. This isn’t a renters vs landlords thing this is an irresponsible pet owner.
You should instead be asking why they chose an obvious outlier to represent pet owners. That one lady has 10+ pets doesn't change that 2/3rds of families have pets and only 20% of rental housing allows cats and dogs of all sizes.
It’s a very odd choice.
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.
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.
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.
Again, that's an outlier and an anecdote.
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.
To be fair, right after that, the article says:
But I also don't think this bill is worth giving a shit about when people without pets can't even afford to rent.
I mean, a fish is pretty negligible in this case, but yeah. There's no way that 4 dogs and 7 cats are being given an acceptable quality of life in a rental. Honestly, I take issue with dogs in apartments, point blank, as conforversial of an opinion as I'm sure that is. The cherry on top is the bird, which tells me everything I need to know about this woman.
This bill will result in all rental costs increasing slightly. You can legislate anything but the costs will always be one hundred percent covered by those using the services. There is no way around this.
I own pets and love them but I can expect an additional cost to house them.
Alternate take: the post rental cleanup industry becomes more competitive.
This smells of what I've heard described before as "the fallacy of immutable profits". Landlord profit margins aren't set in stone. The state could pass any number of additional renter protection measures to force landlords to eat the costs if they wanted to.
But they won't