Tenants Have a Cat!!!
When I advertised my apartment on Craig’s list I was very clear that pets were not allow. I’ve discovered yesterday that one of my tenants has a cat. I was in my backyard and saw the cat on the window sill. I don’t want to seem anal, but a rule is a rule. They signed…
When I advertised my apartment on Craig’s list I was very clear that pets were not allow. I’ve discovered yesterday that one of my tenants has a cat. I was in my backyard and saw the cat on the window sill. I don’t want to seem anal, but a rule is a rule. They signed the rider and agreed to it, so they’re actually breeching a contract. How should I handle the situation without any animosity?
I just want to say to bxgrl that your cat story broke my heart. I’m so sorry that happened.
bxgrl thank you, too for your thoughtful post — I did misunderstand what your perspective was. I think we do agree and I’ve enjoyed the dialogue. I’m sorry for the troubles your landlady has endured, and I would like to add that I also believe landlords are often the cause of problems, too, and not always the victims of unethical tenants. Hopefully the op and his tenant can work it out — I hope we’ll get an update at some point. And I’m glad you have a wonderful place to live with your cats 🙂 Sounds like your landlady is lucky to have you living there.
4:14- Thanks for your reply- I think we agree on a lot more than not. I never said, in any way shape or form that “It is clear from what you said that if the landlord doesn’t “compromise” and allow the cat to stay under some circumstances, he is being unreasonable.” and though I expressed sympathy for the tenant based on my own personal experience, I had said several times that faithful seemed to be pretty nice about it, and not wanting to immediately evict them. You took what I said and extrapolated from that- and maybe that’s where we ran into trouble. I do agree it’s the landlord has every right to evict them over this, and I have said more than once the tenant behaved badly but before they wind up in a nasty tenant-landlord fight, they should talk. I have no idea if the tenant is terrified, or can’t bear to give up a beloved pet or what the situation is, – all of us were just throwing out ideas on how to approach them to fix the situation to the landlord’s satisfaction. After talking to the tenant she may feel she wants to let the tenant have a trial period- we won’t know til she tells us. A lot of people posting seemed all too eager to demonize the tenant and as a cat-lover, and having been through it myself, I know how hard it can be.
And please believe me when I say I have seen what rotten tenants can do. My best friend (who is also my landlady- not only did I keep my cats, she now has them too 🙂 – ) had a tenant who simply decided not to pay rent. She could have lost her house because of it and to add insult to injury, he moved in a friend – also non-paying. Then the legal tenant moved leaving the squatter. My landlady lives on the bottom 2 floors of the house. She went the lawyer route and for 6 months nothing happened, during which time her finances were shot. She was terrified to simply kick him out and finally I said tell him to give you the keys. If he doesn’t, change your locks and don’t tell him. He has absolutely no rights. And he didn’t but NYC laws, had the guy decided to fight her, would have allowed him to live there rent free until it was resolved.
A similar thing happened to a friend who took in a roommate- he wasn’t on the lease. He stopped paying rent because he couldn’t afford it. after 3 months of no money and being ignored, she changed the locks- he took her to court and won (amazing, right?) because she didn’t give him “proper notice ” according to the court.
4:36- I don’t know if the laws are different if you live in the house or if it’s a certain number of units. I think the number of units makes different laws apply? but my feeling is NYC does make it harder to evict tenants, even if they are royally screwing you. And I really think that sucks (pardon the french). On the other hand, NYC enacted eviction laws because many landlords abused their positions. Yet somehow we never seem to find a good medium that’s fair to everyone.
I don’t know what the tenant/landlord laws are in NYC but in Jersey if you live in the home it should be easy to get anyone out if you want… just tell them to leave(I’m kidding of course, you have to go through the usual channels). No one can force you to keep someone in a home that you personally live in as well, there are many ways to get someone out. It’s an entirely different story if you live somewhere else then where your rental units are, then there can be some long drawn out battles..
I know this because I had a particularly horrible tenant last year who puts this topic to shame. I noticed the tenant wasn’t throwing out any garbage over a period of time and started to wonder what was up. I scheduled an inspection and you wouldn’t imagine the horrible hell I walked into in the apartment… it was truly unsanitary. I thought I was going to have a horrible time getting them out (I’ve had tenants before but never had problems so didn’t know what I was going to be facing) but once I explained my situation the tenants were given notice to get out and that was that.
It also helped that the lease was up and I had filed a 30 day none renewal of the lease the month before, it is also a private home (I believe 4 units or more is commercial)… I made sure I had all my ducks in order so that they would be out of my property and they wouldn’t be in my home for months… you have to be prepared.
Okay, I was not trying to twist what you said, so if I did, I apologize, But you are twisting what I said. I did NOT say any tenant who broke the rules was a horrible person, as I understand everyone breaks rules at various times.
What I DID say was that IF a tenant breaks a rule he pretended to agree with in order to move into an apartment and REFUSES to stop breaking the rule when requested, then that tenant is a horrible person. Perhaps horrible was too strong a word to use, so I should clarify and say a completely unethical person. I thought I understood your point to be that the tenant’s love for his cat means that such behavior can be excused. Am I twisting your words here? I guess what I’d like to know is a simple yes or no to this answer: if, after the landlord politely asks the tenant to remove the cat, the tenant says “no”, is he behaving ethically? Does his love for his cat justify his continuing to live in the apartment with the cat despite the landlord’s request? Of course it doesn’t because the tenant always had other options, he just didn’t like the choices as much.
That is why I felt compelled to correct your comparison with the Germans. If you can’t see a difference between someone WILLINGLY agreeing to terms of a contract and then completely disregarding them and someone whose government has established inhumane rules and that person disregards them then you are right, there is no point in continuing this dialogue.
Look, all I am saying is that the tenant chose to rent an apartment that specifically said “no pets” instead of renting one that said cats allowed. That’s what most people who have cats do, believe it or not. I call that cheating, and if I was a cat-owning person who chose not to behave as unethically as this tenant and was thus living in a less desirable apartment, I certainly wouldn’t want the tenant rewarded for his cheating. I was strongly objecting to your contention that some “compromise” be reached in which both parties were happy. But the only “compromise” that you feel is reasonable involves the tenant keeping his cat, right? I don’t want to twist your words, here, so if I’m wrong about that, I’m sorry.
I agree with you that there are times when breaking the rules are justified, but I strongly disagree with you that this is one of them. If that was the case, every person with a dog would be justified in lying about it in order to move into a no dogs allowed building. How do you excuse the tenant not simply moving into a building that allowed pets, as my many, many friends who own cats have done?
Although you claim to see both sides of the issue, you really have no sympathy for the landlord at all. It is clear from what you said that if the landlord doesn’t “compromise” and allow the cat to stay under some circumstances, he is being unreasonable.
I really don’t mean to twist what you say, so perhaps I am misunderstanding you and we actually agree. I actually do have some sympathy for the tenants, but just because I feel sorry for them doesn’t mean that they should get to stay with the cat if the landlord doesn’t want them to. Do you agree with that as well?
Your arguments suffer from oversimplification and a refusal to even consider anyone else’s point of view. and this one “Furthermore, I find it surprising that you feel so understanding toward these poor tenants in their wish to keep their cat. Do you know who I feel compassion for? All the cat-lovers who would have loved to rent that apartment, but did not because it didn’t occur to them to cheat” is particularly so.
You very obviously are ignoring everything I said by way of explanation- I can only assume you are a landlord- and my statement about Germans was to illustrate your insistence (not the landlord’s )that any tenant who breaks the rules is a horrible person (you said this- I quoted you) and you have completely and deliberately misconstrued my presenting the tenant’s possible point of view as a condemnation of the landlord. Now you’re equating a tenant loving his cat with a landlord taking away a dishwasher- can anything be more ridiculous? But if you feel the need to work yourself into a lather and see it as your way or the highway, that’s your perogative. But I prefer dialogues with people who don’t try to twist what I say.
Sorry, I can’t just not respond to some of your remarks, bxgrl, as they are so far off the mark of what I’m trying to say.
“Let’s make them do what we want because we can and make then lick our boots too? Gloat much?”
Where did that come from? You seem to be having some knee jerk reaction to landlords in general. I’m talking about this particular instance, where both parties willingly agreed to certain terms up front, and one party decided to specifically go against those terms after the fact. You somehow think that giving that party the choice to either go along with the terms they agreed upon in the beginning or move is wrong; instead, a new “compromise” should be reached that clearly, in your mind, involves the tenant keeping the cat and getting to stay, instead of being given the choice to move or get rid of it. Do I have that right?
I’m not siding with the op because he’s a landlord, I’m siding with the op because he is ethically in the right. Let me give you a different scenario — the tenant moves into an apartment that is advertised up front as having a dishwasher in the kitchen because that is extremely important to the tenant to have — he hates doing dishes, so he only looked for apartments with dishwashers in his search for a home. The dishwasher is even mentioned in the lease. Two months after moving in, the tenant comes home to find the dishwasher gone and the landlord says, I changed my mind, I don’t want you to have a dishwasher anymore. The tenant points out that the dishwasher was one of the things that was specifically advertised, and the landlord says well I’ll give you $50 off a month for rent so it’s fine.
What if the tenant doesn’t care about the reduced rent (if he did, he would have rented a cheaper apartment without a dishwasher in the first place)? The tenant wants a dishwasher. So there’s no “compromise” to make: either the landlord replaces the dishwasher or he doesn’t. And yes, I would expect that once the tenant tells him he wants the dishwasher, the landlord willingly replaces it and doesn’t feel resentful toward the tenant because the tenant simply asked him to abide by the terms they both agreed to up front. The landlord isn’t licking the tenant’s boots, he’s simply doing what is ethically right, even if there is some way in which he could legally get around replacing that dishwasher, because the tenant didn’t want to go through the difficult process of forcing him to abide by the contract.
Furthermore, I find it surprising that you feel so understanding toward these poor tenants in their wish to keep their cat. Do you know who I feel compassion for? All the cat-lovers who would have loved to rent that apartment, but did not because it didn’t occur to them to cheat. I bet you that there were more than a few cat-owning people who browsed the same Craig’s List ad and didn’t rent the apartment because it said no pets. Those poor losers are now stuck in less desirable apartment because it didn’t occur to them to act in an unethical manner to get what they wanted. Those are the people who deserve your “compassion”.
Most of us act ethically, but there are always people who think they can cheat and you know what’s sad? That they often get rewarded for it, as you propose these tenants do.
To compare this situation to Germans obeying government imposed rules that harm humanity is truly outrageous. This is about someone cheating to get what they wanted. That person could have found an apartment that allowed cats, but instead cheated to get a nicer or less expensive apartment that didn’t allow cats. Sorry, I hardly feel he needs to be compared to those good and brave German citizen who chose not to obey the law and turn in Jews. Do you? The German citizen was putting his life and families at risk to help others and do what was right. The tenants are trying to gain some personal advantage because they wanted a nice place for they and their cat to live.
I agree we need to disagree. Thanks for the dialogue. I think we’ve both said what we needed now.
Well 9:40- I guess you and I will simply have to agree to disagree. Just to make something clear- I wasn’t referring to you personally as calling the tenant the Antichrist- i was referring to the overall tone of some of the hardliners who posted.
A lot of people are projecting onto the tenant- I sincerely doubt they running around going “My landlord caught me but guess what, I refused to move or get rid of the cat and it’s too hard to evict me so I get to stay with my cat, ha ha! Aren’t I smart!” If anything, they are dreading speaking with her.Tenants in general think long and hard about going against the lease. But don’t think there aren’t landlords who abuse their position either.
You are not getting my point either- you’re talking about giving the tenant a choice,not a compromise- give it up or get out. but compromise means that the tenant and the landlord try to work out something that is agreeable to them both. Mature adults can do that.
Nor is the tenant a horrible person if they resent being forced to choose between giving up the cat or having to lose their home. It’s a rotten choice and anyone would try like hell not to make it. An animal owner has a commitment, an attachment and a responsibility to their pet. You’re claiming they are bad if they choose that responsibility ( which is a moral and ethical one) over a commitment to rules that puts them in conflict (ethical decisions).
You say they aren’t the Antichrist, but you do say,” or acts as if he has done nothing wrong and doesn’t immediately rectify the situation, that tenant IS a horrible person.” By those lights, you could argue that the Germans who obeyed the rules and gave up their families and friends to the Nazis were the good guys- it’s not so cut and dry.
On top of that you say, “We all make mistakes and I can certainly understand his error in judgment and feel compassion for the choice he had to make. But ONLY if he willingly and unresentfully rectifies his mistake.” Without resentment?-that’s pretty unrealistic. Like, let’s make them do what we want because we
can and make them lick our boots too? Gloat much?.
As I keep saying, and you don’t seem to be hearing- my point, as many of the other posters, is not about who is right or who is wrong. Faithful asked for advice on how to approach the tenant and everyone gave their ideas on “approach.” No one- especially not I, has accused her of anything. My entire point has been, talk to them and then see what you want to do. While I think the tenant handled it badly,I will never fault anyone for loving and taking care of an animal- that says a lot more good than bad. And I refuse to condemn either landlord or tenant- I have been clear on that as well.
So thanks for chance to discuss it with you. I think we’ve both said what we needed and we agree to disagree.
bxgrl — I appreciate your thoughtful response, but I think you are still missing my point. You keeping talking about “compromise”. But unless the op changes his mind and decides he’ll simply take a chance with his allergies and allow a pet, there’s nothing to compromise. There are only 2 possible outcomes — the cat is allowed to stay or the cat must leave. I suppose a possible “compromise” is that the landlord gives the tenant 2 weeks to get rid of the cat instead of insisting it be gone immediately. I could imagine that scenario, but I hope you would agree with me that the tenant should be extremely grateful for such a compromise and the landlord should be commended for his willingness to compromise after he made it very clear in the beginning that he didn’t want a tenant with a cat and the tenant simply rented the place anyway and brought a cat despite full knowledge that the cat wasn’t allowed.
I never said that the tenant is the Antichrist for having a cat — I said that the tenant made a mistake by choosing to rent an apartment that was clearly advertised as “no pets” and living there with a pet. This is only the tenant’s “home” because the tenant preferred that apartment to one that might allow pets. I just did a quick Craig’s List search for apts. in all NY that allowed cats, and there were more than 48,000. More than 6,000 were in Brooklyn. There are plenty of apartments that allow cats — but maybe they just weren’t in the neighborhood or the price the tenants wanted. Maybe the apartment wasn’t as “nice” (maybe because pets had lived there in the past!) But that’s the compromise the tenants should have made in the first place. Because most of us know that decisions we make have tradeoffs — you have a pet and you have to live in a place that allows them. You have a kid and you have to live in a crummy small apartment in a decent school zone or work to improve the schools where you live so you can have a nicer place in a more affordable neighborhood. We’d all like to be rich enough so we never have to make some compromises, but that’s life. What isn’t fair is to expect other people — in this case the landlord — to adjust to your needs because you decided you wanted both the cat and the nice apartment and you couldn’t have both without lying about it in the beginning.
Again, the tenant is not a horrible person because he made a mistake and brought the cat. But if the landlord asks the tenant to get rid of the cat, he is not “going in confrontational”, he is simply asking the tenant to obey the rules. And, the reaction of the tenant to this reasonable request by the landlord will tell us whether that tenant is a person of character or not. If the tenant resents the landlord for not allowing the cat or acts as if he has done nothing wrong and doesn’t immediately rectify the situation, that tenant IS a horrible person. Not the Antichrist by any stretch of the imagination, but not the kind of person I’d want to have any association with. And whether or not that person would win the battle in court is besides the point.
Would you really find admirable a friend who said, “hey, look what I got away with! I found this great apartment that didn’t allow cats because the owner was allergic but I liked it so much I decided to rent it and sneak in the cat. My landlord caught me but guess what, I refused to move or get rid of the cat and it’s too hard to evict me so I get to stay with my cat, ha ha! Aren’t I smart!”
I know the world is full of losers of this sort. But don’t expect me to feel compassion for them or try to compromise with them. There are plenty of people struggling in the world that are worthy of compassion, but a tenant who acts like this isn’t one of them.
However, if the tenant rectifies his mistake, more power to him. We all make mistakes and I can certainly understand his error in judgement and feel compassion for the choice he had to make. But ONLY if he willingly and unresentfully rectifies his mistake.