Pets Are Not Welcome Here

For dog owners, finding rental housing can be very difficult. Many landlords are reluctant to allow dogs, even with an extra security deposit, and there are no laws that protect dog owners from housing discrimination. SAMANTHA BONAR spoke with Steve McNall, the director of the Pasadena Humane Society and SPCA, and Doug Delahook, owner of dozens of rental properties in L.A. and Orange counties.

DOUG DELAHOOK

Owner of rental properties

I generally will choose to run away from pets. As you know, we can’t run away from children. But in all honesty, pets can cause more damage than children, both inside and outside. Outside, there is digging, and often the pet owners are not responsible enough to pick up after the animals, and of course the animals, from the standpoint of urine, will kill whatever they happen to go on.

I’m a pet lover. I’ve had pets all of my life. But if pets don’t have a place to run, large dogs especially, that to me is very unkind to the animal. But so often pet owners don’t think it through that far. They should really live in a detached house with a good-sized yard if they have a dog. A dog wants to run.

Probably the bigger thing to me is that the animals can cause quite a bit of damage. Everyone’s pet is like a member of their family, and owners get a little biased in their thinking--their defensive posture with respect to the animal. When I first started with rental properties 40 years ago, I was at times talked into allowing a pet--and still do get talked into it on rare instances, if it’s a declawed cat that stays inside. But dogs love to scratch, to get in or out. I’ve had many doors scratched beyond the point of being repairable. Dogs also can chew on drapes. An even bigger concern is carpet. If they go on the carpet, it goes through to the pad, so it’s not just replacing the carpet, it’s also replacing the pad. If urine gets on the hardwood floor, you literally have to cut out the wood and replace the damaged pieces. In one instance, the whole downstairs was ruined.

Then there’s the flea problem. A number of times I’ve had to go in after a tenant leaves and have a special flea treatment done.

Then there’s the barking aspect. Sometimes it can be the result of an earthquake, or car alarms going off--those alarms cause a dog to howl. That can cause problems with the neighbors.

It doesn’t take too many negative experiences to realize that you just ought not to get talked into something. It’s just better to have that policy. It is an area of discrimination that’s appropriate these days--legally appropriate. And really, it seems like most landlords just try desperately to run away from animals because of the opportunity for significant damage.

Most tenants work. So you have an animal that doesn’t get a whole lot of loving. When the tenant is gone all day . . . well, I just think it’s very unfair. It is a choice that is theirs; on the other hand, I have to kind of get involved and not allow myself to be a party to some of this.

One of the things that’s in favor of the landlord is that there are fewer and fewer rentals available for more and more prospective tenants. So a landlord can be very choosy now. Why would someone choose to have a bigger turnover expense, which invariably you do if you rent to a pet owner?