No snakes allowed in new lease

[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.