No snakes allowed in new lease

[Samong]

I hope you will update us on what happened; I DO have a small zoo (3 cats, 1 dog, six snakes, four crested geckos, one leopard gecko, two nano fishtanks and one 75g tropical community) and we just have to be straight up within the first few conversations with a potential landlord. Our current landlord doesn't care as long as pet deposits are in; I've had to save a small fortune for those but I also always get them back. Offering sizeable pet deposits for each animal, even if it's expensive, seems to help as does photos of the secure enclosures. If your landlord is amenable some of them change their minds when they meet the animal in question.

I have to look three times as hard as a typical renter...not only do I have a lot of pets, most of them are exotic, my fishtanks are seen by some as a disaster waiting to happen, and my dog is a hefty 72 pounds. It's a pain and we get turned down a lot. But I figure it's just the price of keeping these animals, everything in life is a tradeoff.

[reptilecatlady]

I'm hiding my BP which I know is a terrible idea. My lease is up in February so I may move simply because I bought her. I wasn't planning on moving as I just started grad school (online) but... there's no way I'd give her up, so I'd be more comfortable in an apt that allows her.

I'm impulsive and was impatient. I know I made a bad decision. But I love her. I know a friend of mine could keep her temporarily if I got caught with her until my lease was up. But I just hope that doesn't happen.

I'm almost positive the lease says no reptiles. But I haven't looked at it in awhile.

I wish snakes didn't have such a bad rep. I know if they get out it's a big problem but if you can prove you're RESPONSIBLE and have a secure enclosure, you shouldn't be penalized.

Vent over.

[Perp]

I am a property manager for an apartment community. Our lease states "no animals", but I personally only enforce dogs/cats. Now my boss, the owner, has a different view...NO pets at all. The city the community resides in also has a ban on exotic pets. When I tried appealing to the owner about allowing snakes, his response was NO on the basis of it escaping.

If I come into your dwelling and see an animal that is not allowed, I assess the situation. I look at how the animal is being taken care of, does it make noise, possibility of escape, and possibility of damages resulting from the animal. With dogs and cats, I am very strict about not allowing them, I fine the resident $25/day until pet is gone and will evict if they do not get rid of the pet. If someone has a cat or dog, I find out really quick about it because of their neighbors calling in to complain. So if someone were to have a bird, I'd hear about it really quickly also. A snake, who's going to know? While I am tolerant of prohibited animals, if you were to ask me if they are allowed, my answer would be a very quick no. But we are a business entity, not someone just renting out an extra house we have. I have rules that are handed down to me to enforce, could very easily cost me my job from veering from them.

So my advice is that you talk to your LL (landlord) before purchasing a snake, or before moving in with one you already own. They can give you a written exclusion to allow you to have them. LL's love money, offering up a pet deposit or other monetary compensation will help in your plea. Let them know the animal is very secure, friendly, and so on. The "hiding" game will not work forever. I personally inspect units at least twice a year under the cover of "changing your furnace filter". Also when work orders are requested, I enter the units. I always announce myself at least 24 hours prior to just coming into the units for whatnot...except under an emergency situation. In the past year I have had at least 10 or so emergency situations where the resident was not home and I just entered. This is where you will get caught easily. Your best bet in finding a landlord that will bend the rules will be in the private sector where someone is renting out a house. But there is also the possibility of an apartment community not caring and allowing it, just be up front. You are more likely to get evicted from an apartment than a house. In apartments, we are used to having vacant units, going to court, evicting, and strictly enforcing rules. If you are asking an apartment community to make an exception, do not ask maintenance or leasing, ask the property manager.

Before we bought a house, we also ran into the same problems in ways. We own 2 large German Shepherds (banned dog in apartments), a cat, a ball python, and an aquarium of mice to feed the snake with. Renting a house, we never had a landlord that cared. Renting an apartment was a whole different story but got permission of the property manager. For our banned German Shepherds, they property manager listed them as service animals. For the snake, just kept it out of sight and they didn't care.

A service animal can be anything up to a small horse...yes a horse. If you have the documentation, they can not stop you from having it. A letter from a clergy, doctor, psychiatrist, counselor, or other people of the like can write the letter for you. It can be as simple as you have depression or PTSD and the animal is a comfort animal. This is a federal law, EVERY landlord will follow it rather than being sued and fined.

Sorry for the rant, hope it helps though.

[Coluber42]

A lot of landlords, especially individuals who rent out one unit or one house, use boilerplate leases that you can download online or that come on the companion CD's to books with titles like "Landlording for dummies". They don't sit down and write out every little part themselves. The boilerplate version says no pets, and probably various other restrictions. But that doesn't mean the landlord is personally committed to every restriction in there, and they may be perfectly happy to amend it if you ask.

Our landlady uses a lease like that, which says no pets by default. But when we moved in here over ten years ago, the landlady was perfectly happy to change it to say that my snake was allowed. Likewise, the standard version of the lease originally said we couldn't have a grill, and she was perfectly happy to change it to say that we could. She's not a property management company, she's just an individual who bought a two-family house and rents out one of the units in order to help with the mortgage. So it's not like it's any kind of massive corporate policy exception to let us have a small, harmless, stink-less, noise-less animal.

[sneakysnake611]

No pet fish?

[PitOnTheProwl]

No pet fish?

Nope.... Water damage possible. LoL

[Perp]

No pet fish?

On top of possible water damage, you should see the damage when people clean or empty their tanks...into the toilet along with rocks/gravel that was sucked up. Yes, no fish either. I personally would rather snakes than fish...as odd as it sounds. Many rules are put into effect because of the not so bright people that do stupid things. I am a property manager, but my main expertise is from a maintenance standpoint of view...i've seen it all. You'd be surprised that many people actually think you can put garbage down a garbage disposal.

[Neal]

Yea, talk and see if he'll make an exception and like others said, reinforce that he said no dogs/cats, nothing about any other animals that live inside an aquarium.

Also what state do you live in?

The reason I ask is I don't really take peoples words on that matter when signing some long term agreement. Due to this, it helped me out drastically a few years back before I bought my house. I had a Yellow Anaconda, and when I was looking into moving in to an apartment, I asked about pets. Now I live in Louisiana which is a one party consent state, which means at least one party in the conversation has to be okay with me recording and as long as I'm involved in the conversation I obviously have my own consent. I don't have to legally tell the other person they're being recorded and even if I did, they have no say so. So when I was talking to the person when signing my lease I read where it said: No Dogs/Cats. So I started recording on my cell phone, set it down and I asked to speak to the property manager about one of the rules. So anyways, I'll fast forward about how the conversation went, ofc not word for word as I don't recall exactly but yea.

Me: Hey, I see this says no dogs/cats allowed.
Him: Correct, some pets are an exception.
Me: I'm possibly going to get a pet in the near future and if I do it'll be something that will live in a secured enclosure. It won't cause any damage and it won't make any noise.
Him: What were you thinking about getting?
Me: I'm not 100% sure yet.
Him: Well as long as it won't cause any damage or disturb the neighbors it's allowed.
Me: Okay, thank you.

Now I already had my snake, but I let a friend take care of him for a few days while I was in the process of moving. Now the following month the guy does inspections, and he sees my snake which clearly he was terrified of. He stated that I had to get rid of it that I never said anything about keeping a snake and if I had he would of told me NO. I replied that he stated as long as it won't cause any damage or disturb the neighbors then it's allowed. He said that wasn't the case and I had to get rid of it. I said I wasn't getting rid of it and I would find another place if needed be as long as he would void the lease. He was clearly in a pissy mood because he said I would be responsible for the remainder of time on the lease. The following month I still had my snake and this is where things went down hill. We got into another argument and he asked me to come in the office to discuss the matter. So I did and during the meeting I played the recording of our exact conversation and said either I'm keeping the snake and I'm staying there or I'll move and he can void the lease. He stated that he never gave me permission to record our conversation and I politely replied that I didn't care how he felt, that it was legal what I did. A week later I got a call saying that I could stay. I guess he consulted his lawyer or whatever and he learned really quick that I wasn't messing around.

[Nellasaur]

While I can't argue with the legality of what you did, Neal, it sure seems like you were operating in bad faith. I would have been pretty pissed as a landlord if you'd pulled something like that on me, even if it was all legal.

OP, I hope you'll go about this with more transparency and honesty if you do decide to ask your landlord for an exception.

[PitOnTheProwl]

So I did and during the meeting I played the recording of our exact conversation and said either I'm keeping the snake and I'm staying there or I'll move and he can void the lease. He stated that he never gave me permission to record our conversation and I politely replied that I didn't care how he felt, that it was legal what I did. A week later I got a call saying that I could stay. I guess he consulted his lawyer or whatever and he learned really quick that I wasn't messing around.

You might want to seek legal advice considering many states will hold this against YOU for illegally recording this conversation.
You would be homeless here in Texas