Hi Everyone,
The headline on the front page of yesterday’s (Toronto) Metro read, Off the Leash, and there was a picture of a dog peering through a set of vertical blinds. The article on page 6 is titled, New Lease Template to Protect Tenants, but I don’t think it will. This is what I mean.
I get that people want to have pets in their lives. And yes even I have signed leases stating no pets but when I told the building manager, or the superintendent that I had a cat, I was told more than once that, “Cats are okay, just don’t tell anyone.” Cats are for the most part quiet, use a litter box and thereby low maintenance. Dogs and birds not so much. Birds can be loud but are caged most of the time. Dogs can be put in crates but they still need to be walked so they can burn off their energy, and do their business. Puppy or dog pads, in my opinion, should not be used all the time. Cats, birds and dogs express their emotions yet dogs are generally louder. That’s a problem.
You see I’ve lived in apartments where people have snuck their dogs in a few weeks after they moved in and there was a whole lot of barking going on and on, sometimes at all times of the day and night. It’s hard to like your neighbour or the person who leased them the apartment when all you hear is barking and you want it to stop. And there’s not a whole lot anyone can do about a dog that barks all the time or uses the hallway or the elevator as their bathroom because they can’t hold it anymore. Don’t think that it doesn’t happen because it does. I live in Toronto and have been in some pretty nice condo buildings where management has had to post signs above the elevators buttons reminding people that the hallway and the elevator is not the great outdoors. Someone even thought it would be okay to use their balcony as their backyard and not clean up after their dog. Yep! Would you want to be their neighbour? I guess the better question is would want to rent to someone like that?
I know a lot of people who wouldn’t and I can’t blame them. Pets with paws usually have claws that can and will scratch surfaces like the wooden or laminated floors over time. Even carpeting gets damaged when threads are pulled. If the pet pees and it is not cleaned up right away, the smell can stay. Replacing carpeting, flooring or in some cases both is time consuming and not cheap. But then neither is living in Toronto.
Landlords may raise rents for all new tenants to compensate for any units that may be rented to someone with a pet and will remain vacant while it is being repaired. If people are complaining about the price of rent now, just wait until May 1, 2018 or sooner. Toronto’s vacancy rate is 1% so landlords can and most likely will charge more because people have to live somewhere and the market can bear it. Having a vacant home and paying the tax is a bit of hit, but the headache of bad tenants, the time and money it takes to repair a unit, sometimes upwards of a thousand dollars may just make it worth it.
Thank you for reading, A. Rebel’s Rant! ;D
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