# may get kicked out of our apartment- please think of us today!



## SnowyShiloh (Mar 17, 2011)

My husband and I have lived in the same apartment for 4 years this May. It was VERY hard to find a pet friendly apartment, but we managed to find this one and we've liked it enough that we've wanted to stay for years! It's an end unit on a triplex and we have our own little fenced in yard (the yard is bigger than the apartment) and the location is just perfect. We've been quite happy here. The owners of the triplex decided to sell the building though and, unsurprisingly, the new owners and new property management company do not want pets in any of the units. For some bizarre reason the new owners did not actually ever come into our unit so they didn't know we have pets, but I'm honest so the first thing I did when we got the phone number of the new property managers was call them up and tell them about the pets. 

To make a long story short, this afternoon the property managers will be coming over to our apartment to look at it and decide if the pets look clean enough to allow us to stay in the unit. As you can imagine, this is very unsettling because I've never had people come over specifically to judge my housekeeping skills. All of the cages have been gone over with a fine toothed comb and are practically gleaming and the rest of the apartment is clean and tidy enough to be in a magazine. We've also offered to pay an extra pet deposit or pet rent or something. The building is almost 65 years old and is in pretty rough shape (I don't think the carpets have been replaced in like 10 years) but our pets have not done any damage to anything. They didn't even clean the unit before we moved in and I can guarantee it will be a lot cleaner when we move out than when we moved in! I'm really, really hoping they will let us stay and not make us move out! If they do, we have only 1 month to find a new place and move in. So, please think of us today!


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## Jynxie (Mar 17, 2011)

I am thinking of you, good luck!

I know how hard it is to rent and own animals.
I'm in one of the only pet friendly buildings where I live, there aren't really any other options other then this place, so I would be lost if I were in your position.

I hope they think it will be okay, if you went over them that much I think they would be. Lets hope they're not animal hating people. I think your honesty would only help you at this point, so hopefully they come over with good terms.

Again, good luck and keep us updated.


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## Boz (Mar 17, 2011)

Good luck! I hope they let you stay!


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## BaileysMom (Mar 17, 2011)

I'm so sorry to hear this, I think if a new manager takes over or new owner the same rules should apply unless they are causing problems which yours obviously are not. You will be in my thoughts and prayers.


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## SOOOSKA (Mar 17, 2011)

Wow I wish you luck. I actually moved into an apartment building that says "NO PETS". Well I've never seen so many dogs in one building. They know I have the rabbits. The Super is fine with it, the property manager seemed ok too.

When i was fumigated a couple of weeks ago for the ants I mentioned in a letter that I saw moths in my apartment. So the idiot who fumigated is trying to blame the rabbit food. Needless to say I know one of my neighbours had tons of moths in her apartment last year and I have spoken to people in the laundry room that also have moths. Honesty I hate apartment living.

Believe me if they even make the smallest suggestion about my pets and making me leave I will raise such a stink with the owners, the Town of Ajax... I've already spoken to the town about the ants.

Honestly I didn't realize that the apartment building has many tenants that are geared to income. Some paying as little as $250. where I'm paying over $1000.

Anyways is it not against the law (here in Canada you cannot be kicked out during the winter and I am under the impression they have to give you more notice than a month.

Susanray:


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## Nancy McClelland (Mar 17, 2011)

ray:


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## buns2luv (Mar 17, 2011)

ray:hoping it went well and you get to stay put.


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## SnowyShiloh (Mar 17, 2011)

Thanks for the good wishes, everyone! I really hope it goes well. They said they'd be here between 3 and 5 so I still have almost 3 hours to go. I baked cookies last night and I'm going to offer them cookies. Everyone likes cookies, right? 

Maybe I should have said what pets we have. 4 bunnies, 3 cockatiels, 2 rats. The rats live together and so do 2 of the birds. One of the ratties won't be with us much longer (she's very old and not doing well). I guess it may seem like a lot of pets to some people, but I handle them just fine and they're all pretty spoiled.

Sooska, it would be nice if they had a rule about not kicking out tenants in the winter! Fairbanks, Alaska is not exactly a temperate climate. Sorry to hear you're having so many problems with your apartment. It sounds like a complete pain. I think we've been pretty lucky until now. I wish the new owners had kept the old property management company. We're good renters who don't cause any problems and have always paid on time, and my husband regularly fixed the property management company's computers for them so we were on very good terms. They could have vouched for us!


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## MiniLopHop (Mar 17, 2011)

If they give you grief perhaps you can get a letter from the previous people explaining that you pay on time, don't cause problems, etc. 

When we moved into our house the land lord was not thrilled with our pets (at that time fish and two cats). Over the years he has let us add to our little zoo. We now have 2 cats, 2 bunnies, 2 turtles, 9 birds, 2 gerbils, 1 forg, and 2 fish tanks. He knows all about them because he is our pet sitter (lives next door). 

The important thing is that the animals do not cause any damage and are well taken care of. I hope these people see that the pets are not a risk to their investment. Good luck!


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## Jynxie (Mar 17, 2011)

Sooska, that is actually a common thing people hear which is not true. 

My mom works at the Brampton court house in small claims (they deal with mostly evictions and such) and people usually think that they can not be evicted during the winter. Some people will even stop paying rent during the winter because of this.

But they actually can, it is just the courts office usually tries to tell the evictor to wait until it warms up a bit. Sometimes they listen, sometimes they do not.

Anyways, off topic.

Good luck with the cookies, it would win me over for sure!


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## nermal71 (Mar 17, 2011)

They still have to give you 60 days notice if I remember correctly. While not a long period of time its much better than 30 days. Look up renter's rights for your state and see what it says.


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## Sweetie (Mar 17, 2011)

I hope that you keep your place. You could also explain that caged animals are quiet and don't make any noise.

The "NO PETS" policy appplies to cats and dogs, you have to ask about caged animals to see if they are allowed, because some apartments will allow caged animals but not cats and/or dogs. I have done this when looking for an apartment when my name came up for Section 8 Housing.

People paying $250 are probably on Section 8 Housing. Section 8 pays the other portion of the rent.


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## Sweetie (Mar 17, 2011)

*nermal71 wrote: *


> They still have to give you 60 days notice if I remember correctly. While not a long period of time its much better than 30 days. Look up renter's rights for your state and see what it says.


Landlords can give you 30days to vacate your apartment, because you are paying monthly rent. If you are on a lease they cannot evict you until your lease is up. I think that is where you are thinking that they have to give a person 60 days notice.


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## degrassi (Mar 17, 2011)

My friend's apartment complex changed owners last year and the new owners changed the rule to no pets allowed but any tenants already living there were allowed to keep their pets. They were "grandfathered in". 

Hopefully you can keep living there if they see its clean and you are good tenants.


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## Sweetie (Mar 17, 2011)

My apartment complex doesn't take Section 8 Housing anymore but I am "grandfathered in", so I get to stay where I am living.


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## YukonDaisy (Mar 17, 2011)

Good luck, Shiloh! I'll be thinking of you guys and hoping everything turns out fine!


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## SnowyShiloh (Mar 17, 2011)

Still sitting here and waiting! We sign a 1 year lease each year, our current lease expires in August. Before the building was sold, we asked the former property manager about the laws and she said our lease could be canceled with 30 days notice by the new owners for whatever reason they wanted (like if they wanted to move into our unit or something) and that they have the right to raise the rent cost even though we have a lease. Though we could leave the lease early if they did choose to raise the rent.


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## SnowyShiloh (Mar 17, 2011)

Oh also, Phoebe has been disregarding her litter box for pee some lately. All urine is still contained in the cage, no problem, and I wipe it up right away. She'll go for a couple weeks without any tinkle incidents, but today she has done it TWICE! Phoebe, PLEASE do not pee off the shelf of your cage when the apartment people are here! :grumpy:


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## Anaira (Mar 17, 2011)

Oh eek! Hopefully things go ok! Phoebe, behave yourself!


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## Jynxie (Mar 17, 2011)

Updates us when you can, I hope it goes well!


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## SnowyShiloh (Mar 17, 2011)

Alright, they came and went! They were only here about 5 minutes. The manager said she hadn't talked to the owner yet about the pets because she wanted to see what conditions their cages are in, but she said they look great. Hopefully the new owners are sympathetic! She said she'd call the owners sometime this week and get back to us. In the end, moving isn't the end of the world and I know everything will work out okay.

Also I ran and put food in Phoebe's food bowl when they knocked on the door so she would be distracted with food and not feel the need to pee outside her litter box  Worked like a charm.


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## Jynxie (Mar 17, 2011)

Sounds good!


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## JadeIcing (Mar 17, 2011)

Wow just saw this. I should tell you what happened to us. Not fun.


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## Sweetie (Mar 18, 2011)

Your new landlord has to wait until a month before your lease is up before giving you a 30 days notice to vacate. They cannot evict you until your lease is up.

I hope things turn out well for you. If you do have to move you can come to Washington State, come to Bremerton and live at the Erlands Point Apartments. There is a pet fee of $500, rent is $815 with $55 for garbage, sewer, and water.


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## MiniLopHop (Mar 18, 2011)

That's wonderful that things went so well. The owners hopefully will listen to their people and let you be grandfathered in. Since they saw everyone was well taken care of it goes a very long way.


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## Myia09 (Mar 18, 2011)

Let us know what happens! In our last apartment, I knew they didn't allow rabbits. So I had to hide ours..then they told us out of the blue they didn't allow Chinchillas (Which was NOT on the lease!) so for the entire year I had to hide them, it was such a pain in the butt!

In this apartment, they allow all animals (except for dog breed restrictions) but they don't know how many animals I have (3 rabbits, 2 chinchillas, 1 hamster, 3 mice, 10 reptiles) so my garbage disposal as been broken for about 3 months and I haven't had them come in the fix it because I am so nervous! lol! 

They know I have at least 1 rabbit because I asked. They didn't have me pay a pet deposit or rent or anything!

Although I havent' paid the pet deposit for Wyatt (my cat) yet!

I hate apartmetns too! It is so nerve racking!


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## Nancy McClelland (Mar 18, 2011)

ray::yeahthat:


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## SnowyShiloh (Mar 18, 2011)

Hopefully they will talk to the owners and the owners will let us stay. I'll try not to worry about it too much because there's nothing I can do about it. The property manager said that because the people in the other two units are moving out (one of them has been there almost as long as we have), the owners would probably let us have a horse in our living room if it meant we would stay since they don't wan the entire building empty! The property manager saw that everything is clean and tidy, so now it really just hinges on how the owners feel about animals. If they hate animals, too bad for us. 

My own mother-in-law keeps telling us that if we move to Washington, we can move into the small house they own and rent out down there. But that we'd have to get rid of "those rabbits" first because no rabbits will be in a house she owns. Yeah right. We would pay to rent somewhere in that case. She thinks her dog is perfect but my bunnies are filthy. I don't even know where she got that idea from since she's only seen my bunnies kept in very clean conditions and knows they use litter boxes. She didn't grow up on a farm or anything and even had a pet bunny as a kid (the bunny had to live outside). Frustrating.

Please note we aren't considering moving to Washington (that would be a bad choice since I'm still in school up here and my degree is rather Alaska oriented), but I'm just trying to say that I know some people are adamantly anti-pet for no specific reasons or the owners could have been burned in the past by other pet owners in their properties.


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## CiaraPatricia (Mar 19, 2011)

Hopefully everything will go well, because they saw your animals are clean. 

When I lived in an apartment I had a cat, and the landlady came over one day to bring us a new hoover (vacuum cleaner ) so I put him in his carrier, put loads of blankets over him so it looked like a pile of blankets and put on loud music so you couldn't hear him meow


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## SnowyShiloh (Mar 25, 2011)

We were still waiting to hear back, but I had to call the management people today because our heat is off and I asked the manager then. She said that she talked to the owner and the owner is okay with the pets! Hooray! She said the owner doesn't need pet rent or a pet fee, just wants us to sign a pet policy, which the management is drawing up right now. I'm not sure exactly what that is, but I'm just so glad we get to stay!


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## JadeIcing (Mar 25, 2011)

That is awesome. So happy for you guys. *hugs*


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## Colorguarder08 (Mar 25, 2011)

Thats good to hear.I know that here in washington they actually CAN evict you even if you have a lease if you are breaking the terms of the lease. Also legally in washington you are automatically grandfathered in the pet policy if your apartments switch owners. However after the lease is up though then you have to follow the terms of the new lease. But the pet policy will basically say that they have to be taken care of, you know clean cages and that stuff. If the pet does any damage to the property you will be responcible. You know just the basic stuff.


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## JimD (Mar 27, 2011)

HOO - RAH !!:yahoo:


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## Nela (Mar 28, 2011)

Shiloh,

I had been reading but hadn't commented but just wanted to say YAY! I admit, I wasn't worried though. I knew they would like you too much :wink


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## SnowyShiloh (Mar 28, 2011)

Ha, Nela, maybe Nedders was a good spokesbun? The manager immediately asked about his ears and was horrified when I told her what happened to him before we got him. Maybe she told the owner that we're great because she didn't want to put him out on the street  Kerensa helped the cause too- she wanted to come out of her cage so I took her out and let them pet her. She's too adorable not to love. Not that I'm biased or anything!


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