Posted by By Oretta Croushore, Property Manager for Home Rental Services
I love fur babies. I mean I really LOVE fur babies. All of them. I love mine, I love yours, I love ones I don’t even know. We have a cat, Sassy, a dog, Miranda, and a guinea pig, Rio in our house.
I share my home office with Rio the piggie. If you’ve ever talked to me on the phone, you have probably heard him in the background. He can be chatty. The love of an animal is a special love.
Miranda is our family’s first dog as well as my first dog. My HRS family likes to laugh when they hear me talk about my doggo as they recall a time I wasn’t sure I wanted to have one in the house. Now, I cannot imagine life without her. I didn’t know having 30 pounds of Heinz 57 dachshund/chihuahua/terrier/pit bull (self proclaimed) mix pressed against my leg could be some of the best therapy the world could offer.
Sassy is my mom’s cat, in every sense. Until, that is, my mom is away for a few days. Then, she comes to me for sisterly comfort during her times of abandonment. Sassy is the tiniest bit dramatic. She had a cat sister, Paris, who was my cat baby. We lost her unexpectedly in December and I feel her loss still every day. She liked to curl up in my arms, like a baby, and fall asleep. She would often want me to hold her paw while she slept. I was the only person she meowed at insistently until I picked her up. Fur therapy is real. The emotional support that animals offer is real and pure.
Statistics tell us that between 75-90% of renters are pet owners.
Many property managers and landlords are moving away from the days of NO PETS. Imagine if you were selling a product but the marketing of that product eliminated 75-90% of customers who would otherwise buy your product. You would change marketing strategies, wouldn’t you? What if that marketing strategy actually encouraged those 75-90% of buyers to instead, steal your product? That’s just not good business. That’s what we see with no pet policies. As they say, if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. It’s much better practice to create pet policies that encourage transparency about the furry folks living in the house.
“Cat pee is the devil!”
That’s a direct quote from a multi property owner client. It makes me giggle every time he says it. If you know, you know. If you don’t know, count your lucky stars. The concern for pet damage is completely understandable. After all, there is literally an animal living in your house. I will say, I feel like I see a lot more damage from humans than I do from pets. (We can’t have a no human policy.) The best solution is to screen the humans before you enter into a lease with them. Why not do the same thing for pets?
Enter a company called PetScreening.
PetScreening is a pet management software company that HRS started working with about a year ago. All renters, even those who do not have animals, fill out a profile on the PetScreening site. By having those without pets fill out a screening, they are stating they do not have any pets. If we find at a later date they do have one, we can point to their previous admission. They also have a harder time claiming ignorance of the policy. Those with animals either choose to fill out a pet profile or an assistance animal profile.
The potential renter fills out the profile for the animal. They provide the name, age, breed, weight , and vaccine records. In addition, they answer a few questions about the animal’s behavior like have they ever bitten anyone, is it house broken, etc. The potential renter also has to acknowledge they can be held responsible for pet damage to the house and that renter’s insurance is required. The best part of all, the renter is asked to upload two pictures of the animal.
You have no idea how much joy this has brought to my job. I get to see all the fur babies now! It has been said this is the best thing HRS has ever done for Oretta (me), directly. Talk about an unexpected job perk!
On the practical side, if a renter says they have a chihuahua but they upload a picture of a Great Dane, we can take action. Once the profile has been completed, the pet is given a FIDO Score. How cute is that?!? That score comes back to HRS and not to the renter. Like a credit score, the FIDO Score gives us an idea of what to expect from this pet. It also allows us to deny a pet based on specific details about their animal without disallowing all animals.
Assistance animals can be a little trickier to deal with from the property manager end.
A lot of people think they just have to tell you they have a service animal or an emotional support animal and that is that. There are specific things we can inquire about and certain documents we can request. It can get into a gray area with Fair Housing if it’s handled incorrectly. PetScreening takes all that off our plate. They are also adept at weeding out the fake ESA documents, which unfortunately exist thanks in part to the internet.
Personally, I think everyone should have a pet or two or however many your home and budget can afford. I have gone from not knowing if I wanted a dog to wanting to pet all the dogs and all the cats. If I am ever mauled by a mountain lion, you can rest assured my last words were “here kitty, kitty.”
If your friends are tired of hearing about your fur baby, tell me about them. You can send your pet photos and stories to oretta@home4rent.com. Extra points awarded if they are in a costume or if you two are in matching outfits. (There’s no prize.) Just know you are bringing joy to the life of a lover of all things fur baby!
To learn more about our pet screening process, or even our human screening process, please give us a call!
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