It's not just for existing. Pets can and do cause a lot of damage. They can urinate on the floors or walls, leaving odor that is very difficult to remove. They can chew up or scratch up doors, walls, floors. A pet can easily do thousands of dollars in damage in a one-year lease term. Of course not every pet does this but you don't know in advance.

On the other hand landlords compete for tenants. So they may want to allow pets but impose a surcharge for the potential damage.

Logically, the "surcharge for potential damage" should be a security deposit, or fines and penalties against specific behavior.

You'd have the same issues with tenants that were excessively noisy, or held parties and spilled alcohol in the hallways, or scratched doors/walls/floors from moving bikes, furniture, etc. So it seems inconsistent to apply the nonrefundable fee only to the case of pets.

Yes exactly. Or toddlers, who cause much more damage than pets. Good luck charging people "toddler rent."

Toddlers predominantly damage fragile personal items. Pets damage walls, doors, floors and furniture. Additionally, pets, especially dogs, are capable of many times more destruction in a short amount of time.

“Fragile personal items” like houses:

https://www.wndu.com/content/news/Dowagiac-house-fire-sparke...

https://www.myarklamiss.com/louisiana-news/child-playing-wit...

https://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/jun/23/child-linked-...

https://www.fox13now.com/2015/07/25/fire-crews-respond-to-2-...

https://www.ajc.com/news/local/kids-playing-with-lighters-ca...

Those are obviously unusual stories. Catastrophic fire is covered by insurance. It is not factored into rent and security.

Pets don’t make the news when they ruin dwelling places, as it is relatively common compared to that.

I have 2 decades of experience in the hotel business, and pets cause much, much more damage than toddlers. The total of pet fees collected never made up for all the damage caused. And tons of people would lie about their animal being a service animal(s). With no shame, they would declare all 3 dogs they have service animals.

Have been on both sides of this as a renter and landlord, and it's basically an insurance payment. We have all sorts of things for which you need to pay for insurance in order for you to have that thing in your possession. When it comes to pets, basically all apartments will require more cleaning between tenants when a pet occupied the apartment, and for some non-negligible percentage of pets there will be large bills due to accelerated wear and damage.

Is my landlord charging me rent "a non-refundable fee for a human each month, simply for existing"? Why shouldn't a landlord offer the option if that's what they're comfortable with? Why is strictly less choice better for a pet owner?

Presumably the rent is the same whether it's just you, or you and an autistic child.

Why are you comparing children with autism to animals? You could have simply said "children", as all children are likely to cause some damage to a home that an adult would not.

Apologies, that was careless. I was recalling a specific situation of a woman and child who lived above me 5 years ago. I let the details of this lady's situation seep into my analogy and it came off really poorly.

That's really not fair since pets do cause quite a bit of damage on average and as someone who likes pets, I feel like such a policy of not having pet rent would make it even more difficult to find a place that even allows pets.

Toddlers cause more damage than single adults. Should landlords be able to charge more for, say, a single mother with a mentally disabled child who is prone to throw things?

In both cases -- pet or children -- damages should be extracted from a security deposit. j

Makes sense to me. It's like charging a fee for smoking. Pets are going to create a certain extra amount of wear and tear, some not easily quantifiable. No matter how clean and well behaved you think your pet is.

I used to work in property management and we charged extra fees each month for pet rent. I initially was against it when I started working there, but by the end I completely understood why they did it.

The reality is that animals are rougher on homes than humans are. Even things like the backyard will have more wear and tear on it with a pet than with humans and all of this has to be dealt with during turn over.

A perfect example of this is paint. During a normal turnover we would do a "tier 3" paint job. Which is to hire someone to come in with a spray gun and spray the walls white. They don't target baseboards or ceilings, but the overspray will generally cover some of it (ever notice how apartments and rentals generally have white walls, white baseboards, and white ceilings?). It is a cheap and lazy paint job that we have negotiated flat rates for $300-$400 per home. This happens no matter what.

But on a home with a pet occupant, it is nearly guaranteed that you would need to perform at least a tier 2 paint job which is generally coupled with a carpet replacement. The carpets are torn up (or peeled back if they are recoverable), the painters come in and spray the walls, baseboards, with overspray on the underlayment (under the carpet) and the ceiling edges. This usually runs us $800 - $900. So pet rent usually goes to that.

After a tier 2 paint job, a carpet contractor usually comes and re-stretches the carpet and does a carpet shampoo. But on a home with a pet occupant this has to be replaced since hair and dirt that most people don't notice, can cause allergies for the next tenant. So with a pet occupant our turnover cost goes from a standard $200 for re-stretching, as much as $1,200 for fresh carpet. Pet fees go to that.

A final turnover item is the backyard. Normally a lawn care company comes to do a standard touch up on the yard. This includes mowing, trimming, leaf blowing, etc, just to make the home presentable for walk-through. But with a pet, the grass is usually thinner after the pet use, and needs some re-seeding. Sometimes it is destroyed with holes or previous renter patches. Fences often need fixing (which gets really expensive, even if it is just a few boards) and so on. A standard lawn turnover usually costs $50. But with a pet it usually is $100+ and I have seen extreme cases where it is in the thousands.

This all comes from someone who owns a big dog that I love. My dog is well behaved. He never has accidents in the house and for the most part doesn't cause noticeable damage. But there are minor things that you just don't notice that I have only seen now that I have experienced it through property management.

Pets really do cause more wear and tear on homes than human-only occupied homes. That is why there are pet fees. They know that more is going to be done when you move out and those fees contribute to limiting that.

Now many renters have learned that if they claim that a pet is an emotional support animal, that they can avoid pet rent. But the reality is that if you claim a pet as an emotional support animal, that you can basically kiss your deposit goodbye. The company that I worked for was pretty good about giving back deposits. There was a $400 non-refundable deposit that we collected upon move in that you never got back. THis covers standard turnover stuff like tier 3 painting and carpet re-stretching. So if you leave the house in good condition, then we can give you everything other than that $400 back, and usually did. If you have a pet, then the extra rent from pet rent is calculated to cover the upgrades to tier 2 paint jobs and carpet replacement jobs. So again, you get your deposit back unless something is beyond normal wear.

But if you avoid pet rent with the emotional support animal, then that is fine. They won't charge you pet rent, but you will certaintly not get any of your deposit back. The owner or property manager still has to do the carpet replacement, yard fixes, and extra painting regardless of whether you pay pet rent or not. So emotional support animals generally lose their deposits to cover these costs, while people with pet rent usually get their deposits back.

What I don't get is why can't this occur via a massive deposit on the front end, that the landlord can then itemize and prove when the tenant moves out? Rent forces all people to pay a monthly charge for their pet, regardless if their pet is a disaster or well behaved.

A security deposit is a legal term treated differently than rent, and can become a subjective thing that can be litigated. It's much more secure to simply demand it as rent.

Hotels discount rooms all the time for guests they know have a very low likelihood of causing damage. The probability of a person with a pet causing damage must be sufficiently high that it makes sense to charge extra. There's plenty of competing landlords and hotel businesses, and if there was economic opportunity in doing it the way you said, it would be done.

It's not just pets though. Hotels will charge more for wedding parties, who are far likelier to cause noise complaints, damage etc, than a crew of workers who will be sleeping, going to work, rinse repeat.

> A security deposit is a legal term treated differently than rent, and can become a subjective thing that can be litigated. It's much more secure to simply demand it as rent.

Oh, I realize why landlords prefer it. I just don't think it holds up under scrutiny. If you're my tenant and I charge you $100/month for dog rent on your new puppy, who causes $0 damage and lives for 14 years, I've extracted $16,800 from you, $0 of which will go toward rehabbing the apartment of dog damages when you leave.

The naive $0 in this example is exactly the issue. Pet owners don’t notice the damage and wear (over a dog’s entire lifetime, substantial), so they contest it when they are wrong. If an expense is effectively guaranteed to be occurred, it should be paid.

Additionally, a landlord will want to work on the space more often than once every 14 years. A security deposit does not cover this.

Additionally a tenant renting for 14 years is making a suboptimal financial decision regardless of pet ownership. Much more than $15k would be unnecessarily spent, for many people. A tenant who wants to get the better end financially, especially a pet owner, will buy or at least keep the landlord honest about market costs of the rental.

Conversely, if you don't want to pay the fee, simply don't have a pet.