What to do?

[JLC]

Alright so when i went to talk to him i brought up the subject that the lease only says cat and dogs. He said it pertains to all "pets" to cause the damage of the property.

So i proceded to ask about fish, hamsters, and such animals he said they are also covered under "pets" but has not had anyone pay for such animals yet

So i started to talk about how it could not damage the apartment and after 15 mins or so he asked if he could see the way they were being kept. Showed him around and he was actually very interested in them. So then i brought up the subject of the guy looking through my stuff. He said he will check to see who was in the house and look into it.

Needless to say i still had to pay but not what it was before. I ended up paying $50 to cover the possible "smell" my snakes could leave behind to cover the removal of the "smell"

Thats as far as i was willing to negotiate over the issue, tho he is making me add something to my rack to keep them in the apartment ask they could be "potentially dangerous animals" so he informed me i needed to add "lock" type things to the rack to ensure the snake cannot push the tub out on its own and escape. Any ides how i can do this he said there will be a follow up check to ensure i followed what was requested.

Given how utterly unreasonable some people can be over the keeping of snakes, I think things went really well for you.

One valid concern I would imagine landlords might have is what they would do if one of your snakes (or anyone's) escaped and disappeared into the walls of the building. That risk would warrant a higher deposit, in my opinion. But of course, as a tenant, I would never bring that up myself!

Regarding the placement of "locks"...my hubby is the same way with my little rack. It HAD to have some kind of mechanism that would prevent the snakes from pushing their tubs out (which is actually not possible to do..it'd be like trying to pick yourself up by your boot straps...but yeah...whatever ). I'm not sure what kind of rack system you have, but if you can drill a small hole through the middle of each shelf, you can insert a pin/dowel/fat nail/doodad/whatever in each hole. Depending on how it's set up (and what kind of pin you end up using), they can either block the upper lip of the tub from sliding out...or brace against the bottom of the tub to keep it from sliding. I'm sure you can find something inexpensive at the hardware store that would serve as a suitable pin.