If you’re considering an apartment that accepts pets, it’s wise to learn about the rules that apply to animals in apartments. Conversely, if you want a no-pets building, you should understand what “no pets” means. It’s not a simple question whose answer involves only cats and dogs.
Love ’em or hate ’em, animals mean more work and expense for apartment owners and managers. Among the expenses, a building that allows dogs may provide plastic waste bags and disposal receptacles, a separate play area outdoors, and need specialty cleaning for pet hair and “accidents.”
Animals also can create problems between neighbors. Neighborly disputes often involve noise; dogs may bark loudly or frequently, disturbing residents’ sleep, home-based work, or babies.
Finally, animals create risks of personal injury and property damage. Dog bites are common and a frequent source of homeowner insurance claims. Animals can damage carpet and furnishings with their teeth, claws, and waste matter and track dirt (and worse) into the building. Some people have allergies incompatible with certain animals and others are afraid of them.
Support Animals and Pet Policies When Renting
Apartment owners used to have fairly simple animal policies — they were allowed, prohibited, or allowed with restrictions. Examples of traditional restrictions would be “dogs less than 30 pounds,” “two pet maximum per apartment,” or “pet security deposit required.” Until recently, these restrictions mostly applied to cats and dogs. Nearly all this has changed, mostly due to the skyrocketing desire for emotional support animals (ESA) at home.
Anyone interested in this topic should first understand that service animals are considered neither pets nor emotional support animals; under the Americans With Disability Act (ADA) they must be accommodated in housing units. But the definition and role of a service animal is specific. At present, service animals include only dogs. On the other hand, many different types of animals can be support animals.
What accounts for the recent spike in interest in support animals? First and perhaps most indisputably, studies show the benefits of animal therapy on human health and wellbeing. Second, society has a growing awareness and understanding of emotional and psychological conditions like depression and anxiety. Third, younger people seem to be turning to animals for companionship and emotional support in greater numbers than their elders.
These and other factors create a fuzzy and uncertain landscape for both apartment owners and tenants. Whether emotional support animals should be allowed in private homes is addressed by the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Fair Housing Guidance. The guidance lists support animals as dogs, cats, birds, rodents, rabbits, gerbils, turtles, and guinea pigs. HUD identifies support animals as those “commonly kept in households,” excluding reptiles, barnyard animals, monkeys, kangaroos and non-domesticated animals. In real life, however, most people don’t read HUD guidance and an incredibly wide variety of animals have been claimed by their owners to provide emotional support, ranging from turkeys, peacocks, goats, snakes, rodents and alligators to miniature horses and pigs.
Under the Fair Housing Guidance, housing providers must make reasonable accommodations for persons with support animals “trained or untrained … do work, perform tasks, provide assistance and/or provide therapeutic emotional support for individuals with disabilities.” The owner’s disability does not have to be apparent. Since support animals are not legally considered pets, no-pet rules do not bar them from housing.
Support animals do not get a free pass, however. Documentation justifying accommodation of a support animal must be (1) provided to the landlord by its owner, and (2) signed by a health care provider certifying the owner’s need for the support. The health care provider need not be a medical doctor — psychologists, psychiatrists, physician assistants, nursing assistants, nurses and optometrists can certify the patient’s need.
Landlords are sometimes justifiably skeptical of owners’ emotional support claims. For example, a resident may claim to experience anxiety outside the animal’s presence but leave the animal home alone for 12-14 hours a day or leave it behind or in a kennel for vacations or business trips. Inexpensive ($10-30) fake pre-made certifications of emotional support are readily available online, as are “service dog” vests. Privacy rules for medical records inhibit what an apartment owner can do to investigate an animal’s documentation or its owner’s disability. These legitimacy concerns make it challenging for landlords to decide whether to approve support animals.
HUD’s guidance is a roadmap, not a law. Courts can ignore the guidance and did so in a North Carolina dispute about chickens in a residential community. Despite covenants barring livestock or poultry except dogs, cats or other household pets ...,” the court allowed “virtually any animal treated as a household pet to be kept on the homeowner’s property,” including outdoors. Although poultry includes chickens, the “household pet” clause let in the same animals that the “livestock or poultry” clause locked out. (Bryan v. Kittinger, NC Court of Appeals, 4/5/22.)
Animals in residential areas and planned communities can also subject to a complex patchwork of laws. In Lee County Florida, owners of exotic farm animals with “possible adverse effects on the natural environment” must have permission to keep American alligators. In Gainesville, Florida, 10 hens are permitted on residential property, but no rabbits. Keeping up with all this can be a full-time job. If demand for emotional support animal accommodation continues to increase, ESA rulemaking and monitoring may even become a career path. If it does, apartment living may become more expensive as landlords try to comply with accommodation requests.
Attitudes about animals in residential communities and their effects on human welfare are changing. Pets can be restricted within limits, but service dogs cannot. The gray area involves support animals. Their owners are liable for damage to others. Apartment tenants should have tenant homeowners insurance to cover this risk (and landlords may require it).
Landlords may: (1) ask what work the animal performs, (2) with the tenant’s consent, verify the the health care provider’s certification, (3) require that support animals have all mandatory vaccinations, and (4) collect a security deposit to cover potential damage by the animal.
Personally, I prefer not to live with or near most animals based on my experience. Dogs can be loud and will defecate anywhere unless their owners are conscientious. (When there are no witnesses, conscientiousness declines, which elevator and hallway cameras prove.) Pets sometimes smell bad; in confined spaces like elevators, it’s unpleasant. At the pool, unleashed pets grab human food. Dogs and cats on upholstered furniture in the lobby and social room leave fur and hair which gets on our clothes. I’ve been bitten by dogs and now fear most breeds. In short, I’m not a pet person. I can be dubious about the veracity of emotional support claims because I have heard from some owners that the support they get is a synonym – or a substitute - for companionship. But that’s just me and I don’t make the rules. Apartment building owners must comply with HUD Guidance and observe fundamental fairness to persons with special needs. If accepting support animals achieves these goals, they must be accommodated.
Some Key Takeaways for Renters, Landlords, and Apartment Managers
So if you’re considering the impact of animals in your building, here are my suggestions for landlords and tenants:
For prospective tenants. Request and read the building’s rules and policies for pets and emotional support animals. Just because an apartment has a “no pets” rule doesn’t mean there won’t be animals in the building. If pets are restricted, ask about the types of pets allowed and other criteria, like weight limits, prohibited breeds, and number and kind of animals allowed per apartment. Learn where animals are allowed in the building and if there are separate outdoor spaces for them. Ask how many animals live in the building before applying for a lease or paying application fees. Inquire about animal-related complaints and disputes between neighbors involving animals, what these were about, and how they were resolved. Ask if tenants must have renters insurance covering injuries caused by their animals.
For apartment owners. Be prepared to answer prospective tenant questions about all categories of animals (pets, service dogs, emotional support animals). Keep detailed records of any problems with animals, and their resolution; these should be available to tenants on request. Document animal-related accommodation policies regularly and update them periodically to ensure compliance with law. These policies should be made available to tenants at lease approval and on request.
Service animals (dogs) must be allowed. They must be under the owner’s control and the owner has liability for their behavior. Generally speaking, pets can be restricted based on size/weight, number per apartment, breed (for dogs), or type of animal (e.g., no livestock or reptiles). Support animals cannot be prohibited on a blanket or arbitrary basis, but management can and should investigate their documentation, the health care professional that certified it, and collect security against harm or damage caused by the animal(s).
