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Comment by mike_h | Hacker News Reader

Landlords have no way of knowing which dog is going to be the one that costs them thousands of dollars in damage and/or headaches, so they have to charge extra for all of them, same way insurance underwriting works.

You opted in to that price class, and that luxury of having a pet. When you lie that your dogs are service animals, you make life harder for people whose survival depends on it.

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If I have a serious wreck in my car, I win the insurance bet—that is, it may well pay out more than I've paid in. Even crappy health insurance policies have cases where they do the same.

Not so with pet deposits in any lease I've seen. They take your money, which is usually non-refundable, and will still charge you for any cleaning and repair not covered by the deposits you paid.

Perhaps it's insurance from the landlord's perspective, but it's an added cost the tenant bears that offers them no financial protection at all.

The extra money isn't meant to protect you (the tenant) from anything. It's there to protect the landlord's interest in being able to recoup losses caused by a destructive pet.

If a landlord isn't returning your pet deposit when you move out, it's not a deposit, it's a fee. If they're misrepresenting it as a deposit that will be returned, you might have legal recourse, depending on where you live.

Leases are pretty clear about the non-refundable nature of the deposit/fee/whatever, and it isn't exactly a rare practice.

Ah, gotcha. Why is that so objectionable, though? Can you state with certainty that a dog (not specifically your dog, but the average or maybe even a majority of dogs) does not increase wear-and-tear on an apartment at a level that justifies a higher rent? I live in SF, so I'm certainly no stranger to the concept of the greedy landlord who jacks up prices just because they can, but extra pet rent seems entirely reasonable to me and not just a manifestation of greed.

The objection is generally landlords have to show damages to collect compensation from renters. They collect deposits to ensure at least some of the bill gets paid should you damage the place beyond normal wear and tear, but if you leave your home in the condition it was in when you moved in the landlord owes you your deposit back. That makes sense.

What justifies pet deposits being different? What justifies pet rent but not, say, charging extra rent or an extra non-refundable deposit because you have a toddler?

(Is pet rent even collected and applied to the cost of repairing any damage your pet causes? I should find out what's common here.)

As an aside: I've also had a landlord charge almost $5 for a paper statement, or just under $1 to e-mail me a statement instead. (No statement was no option.) They're clearly not above nickel-and-diming their customers—which I found weird because $1 on top of, say, $800 (plausible rent for a two-bedroom unit in not-SF) is nothing—about 0.1% of rent. Which makes it a minor annoyance at worst, but… why bother? $400 (common pet deposit amount in not-SF) + $10/mo (common pet rent, when pet rent is charged) is also nothing—just over 5% of one year's rent. But it's more of a something than a $1 fee for them telling you what you owe this month, which they felt the need to do regardless.

Or they can charge a security deposit. If my pet causes damage it comes out of that; if the cost exceeds the deposit they can demand the additional amount. That's the way it used to be - the recent trend of admin fees (pet or otherwise) in lieu of security deposits is the bullshit part.

I also opted into no such price class. This has become standard practice in my market. Rents in major metro areas are insane and the additional profiteering on the part of landlords and management companies gets worse every year. They do it because you have virtually no choice but to agree to them.

As for making anyone's life harder: how so?

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