Tenants Upset After Their Landlord Refused To Allow Them To Have A Pet And Made An Exception For Others

" I told them I don't allow pets, but they say it's unfair because I allowed the old woman to have 2."

Ayoub

• Published in Interesting
• November 14, 2022

Landlords often set regulations and rules for their rental properties. Some forbid their tenants from having pets, but this policy can sometimes not apply to people with a medical need for an animal. 

Some landlords don't accept pets because of the potential property damage they can cause. Pets can sometimes go on destructive rampages and completely annihilate everything on their way.

The damage can range from scratching the carpet, to making neighbors uncomfortable or even attacking them. To put it in a nutshell, pets are capable of causing a lot of damage to a property, and landlords aren't ready to take that risk.

More than 60% of renters look for pet-friendly landlords, and most own a pet. Some tenants are even ready to pay extra money to have the opportunity to live together with their pets.

A Redditor who goes by the username u/aita_landlord1717 made a post on the r/AmItheA**hole subReddit where he explained how he refused to let one of his tenant's son move in with his pet despite allowing another tenant to have two dogs. The user got a lot of interesting reactions to his post; scroll down to check out the full Reddit post.

Here's the original post by Reddit user u/aita_landlord1717:

OP made an exception for the old lady and allowed her to have two dogs.

Other tenants told OP it is unfair not to allow them to have a dog when he made an exception before.

OP is unsure whether he made the right decision and decided to ask the Reddit community about it:

OP thinks he might potentially be the a-hole for the following reason:

Here's how the Reddit community reacted to u/aita_landlord1717's post:

Prioritizing taking care of your business is completely fair.

Exceptions are made for exceptional circumstances.

Landlords allow pets based on specific criteria.

OP owns the property and it's his decision to make.

It's all up to OP if he wants to make exceptions.

Many apartments have restrictions.

OP should be consistent with his rules; otherwise, they won't be respected.

OP doesn't need anything more than that.

Landlords are also reponsibe for the damage caused to neighbors.

The tenant can opt to pay the insurance themselves.

Making the exception twice would mean having to do it again at some point.

OP opened the door to this kind of behavior.

Life can sometimes be unfair. That's just how things are.

Doing it once doesn't mean you have to repeat it.

This should be a learning experience for OP's tenants.

Op's first exception made sense, which is why his tenant persuaded him into saying yes. This time, the circumstances are different, and OP has every right to refuse to let them have a pet.

It seems unfair, but the two cases are not similar. If you enjoyed reading this, make sure to check out similar content on our platform.

Ayoub