“Exposed Secrets: The Shocking Consequences of Hiding Pets from Landlords!”
I had a landlord try that stunt on me! I told him about my cat and even had the cat’s name included on the lease. Landlord met the cat many times and the property manager had a picture of my cat on her office wall. I moved out after 4 years and my landlord said to me during our final walkthrough “Well, we still have to settle the issue with the cat. You never told me you had one so you owe me 4 years of pet rent.” I was stunned!! He pulled out a fake lease that said I had no pets and if I wanted one, it was $50 a month. Luckily, I still had all my paper files with me and pulled out my copy, signed by both of us, with the cat’s name on it.
When my building’s super found out we had cats, she started coming into my apartment without notice to bring them gifts! I came home one day, and my cat had a little bandanna collar on. He never wears a collar. I don’t buy him toys with bells because he’ll never let me sleep again, so where did this jingle ball come from? It was the super.
In my city, the law was that if anyone from management knew we had pets and they did nothing for like ninety days they couldn’t enforce the no pets clause anymore, so I said nothing and let her do her thing.
We originally wanted to get a dog, but our landlord declined due to dogs being “noisy.” So we got our cat but didn’t let him know.
Later on, there was a mouse problem in the apartment building. An exterminator came in with our landlord to look around and ask if we’ve seen any mice. We hadn’t and the exterminator didn’t find any proof that the mice had entered our apt. The exterminator saw our cat tree, pointed to it and went “this is why they’re the only ones with no mice!” My landlord looked at us, at the cat tree, then went “I guess that worked out, huh?”
We got lucky that our cat potentially saved him money lol. His wife met our cat recently and our cat made sure to get in her good graces too.
(Edit: sp).
Kinda the opposite, but a fun story:
I was touring an apartment and on the screening call they asked if I had any pets. I was honest and said that I was a teacher and I have a guinea pig class pet. The school turns off the heat at night, so he comes home with me each day. No problem with that.
I get there for the tour and everyone in the leasing office is looking at me weirdly, including the person I was meeting with, who was a parent in the classroom next door. She asks me about pets and seems apprehensive, and I tell her it’s just Jigsaw the guinea pig that her son is obsessed with. She gets this moment of realization, cracks up, and excuses herself.
I then hear her in the back room of the office saying “guys! It’s not a pot bellied pig, it’s a GUINEA PIG!” Yeah, whoever did the phone screening only wrote “pig” on the form and they thought I was bringing an animal right off the farm. The leases didn’t specify no farm animals, so they would have accepted me with a farm pig, but alas, I just had my dumb-as-rocks piglet.
When she returned, she tore up the pet paperwork, waived all fees, thanked me for giving the leasing office some excitement, and made me promise to let her know if I ever decided to upgrade to a larger pig variety.
Edit: yes, I know guinea pigs should be in pairs. Jigsaw had a brother at my parents house and my mom and I taught at the same school, so they were together daily. Different ages and couldn’t be in the same cage, but spent most time cage-to-cage. We always had solo pigs growing up, but learned our lesson when I moved out and never had solo pigs after that.
This is how I got my chihuahua. The lady a few apartments down had this puppy that she wasn’t able to keep because she hadn’t paid the pet deposit and couldn’t afford to. I don’t remember what exactly the landlord said they’d do if she didn’t get rid of the dog or pay the pet rent, but I’m sure it was harsh. Anyway one day my girlfriend at the time and I were going back to my place, we’d just parked and were walking towards the building and here comes this tiny little chihuahua puppy running towards us. My girlfriend leans down to greet her and she jumps into her hands, so she scoops her up and we start heading towards my neighbor who was chasing her dog down. A few nights later the same thing happens to me and as I’m handing the puppy back to my neighbor she tells me what’s going on and how her toddler is too rough with her anyway and asks if I’d want to buy her since she clearly likes us so much. So I paid her and took the dog home the next night, and put her on the lease asap. We still have her, she’s been the best little dog I’ve ever had, and my girlfriend is my wife now. The puppy is now a spoiled little 12 year old and is in very good health for her age, we hope to keep her around as long as we can.
Oooh, I had a good one happen. It was my first apartment, and my gf’s friend dumped a kitten on me as a birthday present because she’d heard me talking about getting a cat and found a box of them on the side of the road. (I loved that cat, but don’t do this kids.)
It took six months before the property manager managed to catch sight of the cat in the window while walking the property. I got an email asking about it, I lied and said I just got the cat and hadn’t had a chance to notify them yet, they said cool the pet deposit is $200. So I cut them a check and dropped it off at the office, expecting that to be that.
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