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Comment by loeg | Hacker News Reader

Banning junk fees / truth in advertising is good. But I absolutely hate that pet rent was bundled in to this. Pets occasionally cause very high amounts of real damage that should be covered by pet owners, not tenants without pets. And Seattle has banned every other possible avenue of passing this expense only to the parties responsible (higher deposits).

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Yes this will absolutely raise rents for everyone in order to cover pet damage costs, which can easily reach thousands, exceeding any profit for the lease term. They are the top cause of rental unit damage.

Many smaller landlords will choose to exclude pets entirely in order to keep rental rates competitive.

(I have worked in housing in Seattle and have seen this first hand. And I love pets, have them myself!)

If you worked in housing in Seattle you would know it's not really legal or practicable for landlords to exclude pets, considering the expansiveness of ESA designations. Almost every landlord already excludes pets outside of ESAs

Yes and the ESA program is unfortunately regularly abused. Without judging tenants, I know multiple people from my personal network who proudly got the ESA designation simply to get around the rule.

There are numerous pet-friendly landlords, but typically the rent is not cheap. Pets have a real cost — they aren’t cheap for the owner, I don’t know why the owner assumes they don’t add cost to their living situation.

The main complaint seems to be that there is not a glut of cheap pet-friendly rentals, which is an unrealistic expectation in Seattle where the housing market is already extremely competitive.

> Many smaller landlords will choose to exclude pets

That would be amazing! Imagine no poop and no smell! And no barking!

And no subsidizing others peoples farm animals!

Funny how "pets" does not usually include rabbits, mouse, aquarium fish or snakes.

Pet deposit is for that, not pet rent. Or just deposit in general. Humans _can_ cause just as much damage as pets.

This will likely result in more "No pets allowed" leases

land lords assess and charge for damages, regardless of source

why should pets require a monthly, non refundable fee regardless of damages or not?

My main gripe is my building charges $50 more for EV spots and then wants to charge as much as the charging stations, that's a nope for me, I'll just charge while buying groceries

Is there data to show that pets actually cause more damage? I see this argument get thrown around quite frequently (often by landlords), but I don't buy that it's a major issue.

Well, there are plenty of lies. Because tenants are liable for the supposed damages regardless of whether landlords can grab $100/mo or whatever.

That's not to say that pets can cause tons of damage: if someone let's a cat spray inside and doesn't immediately clean it, that can cost tens of thousands if it seeps down to the underlayment. But (1) that ain't getting covered by the $50 - $100 they want to gouge people for; and (2) tenants are liable for that either way.

Yes, absolutely.

It isn't that every pet causes more damage as a rule, its that very frequently pets do damage that is quite expensive. Urine can require floor and subfloor replacement. I've seen dogs chew through walls, etc. Pets in common areas leaving tracks and fur, etc. I'm a dog lover, but it would be folly to pretend that owning a dog does not cause additional wear and tear on my house.

That said, damage from pets should be handled through the damage deposit. Pet rent is just another way to pad the bill.

I am thinking it might be less about the damages (which the tenants are obliged to pay for anyway) and more about the extra work the property must do to deal with noise complaints, escaped pets, possible legal actions, hassles the maintenance might need to show up for, possible extra hours staff might need to work, pooper scoopering, yellowing grass, etc.

Can property owners not just go to small claims court?

Typically these claims are completely unrecoverable. The tenants don’t have the money, and the cost of pursuing further is too high. The only way to ensure payment is to get it upfront.

That's what damage deposits are for, no?

Damage deposits are capped.

It is not hard for an irresponsible renter to do way more damage than a deposit can cover.

Maybe we'll see an exodus of landlords as this becomes a less economically viable lifestyle.

Which is exactly what another post was saying: that large corporations will step in instead.

Yes, we'll see an exodus of small landlords and see much higher monthly rents passed on to all tenants just to subsidize the ones that cause damage. This isn't better for most tenants.

Seattle severely caps deposits, too.

That seems pretty sub optimal

> And Seattle has banned every other possible avenue of passing this expense only to the parties responsible (higher deposits).

From the very legislation this article is about:

7.24.040 Fees permitted and prohibited <...> B. A landlord may charge the following fees in addition to rent: <...> 4. Pet damage deposits pursuant to Section 7.24.038;

https://library.municode.com/wa/seattle/codes/municipal_code...

tl;dr: Pet damage deposits may not exceed 25% of the first full month's rent, no other fees are allowed. If I'm reading this correctly the current version of that ordinance was passed in 2016.

A $500 deposit isn't covering 4-5 figures of damage.

> A $500 deposit isn't covering 4-5 figures of damage.

Nor will any deposit I've ever made for an apartment in my life cover any truly significant damage that could easily happen as the result of a mistake or minor negligence.

Three of the five incidences of significant damage caused by tenants without malicious intent that I've been aware of in the time I lived in apartments were caused by unattended children and none by pets. Would anyone dare to suggest increasing rents for and/or requiring additional deposits for children?

Most of the time I lived in apartments I had a cat. In every single one of those cases I either paid a nonrefundable pet fee or a refundable pet deposit and monthly pet rent, either way the complex got extra money out of me simply for the cat being present. I'm not saying he didn't cause some wear and tear of his own, but it didn't take things outside of the normal levels of wear and tear that would be expected without pets. The only stuff we ever got charged for on moveout was stuff I or my roommate did, not the cat.

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If landlords are worried about 4/5 figure damage they should require their tenants carry renters insurance that would cover 4/5 figure damage and then allow professional actuaries to determine how to price that risk, because neither a reasonable deposit nor any pet rent that's ever been charged is going to cover that.

Damage is what damage deposits are for, and Seattle allows pet damage deposits.

Seattle severely caps deposits; this isn't even close to adequate.

I would think that if a pet causes a high amount of real damage, the landlord should still be able to seek remuneration for that damage. They just can't charge for it in advance.

Now we know you have never been a landlord... "Seek it after the fact" works out in ~0% of the time. Best case is you can sell the debt to a collections agency for ten cents on the dollar, and that is after a court case that you are unlikely to win in the first place. This is why security deposits exist. Cause "get it after" rarely works out.

Because it exceeds the security deposit?

security deposits are set such that "exceeds" is rare precisely because collecting is impossible on average

Right, so, won’t almost all pet damage be covered in that amount?

No. Seattle caps security deposits.

Did you ever had to salvage house after cats or dogs? Normal deposit or insurance does not cover that!

Usually it means replacing carpets, wooden floors and bottom part of walls!

Urine contamination gets everywhere , there is no way to remove that smell!!

the monthly fee is not going to cover that amount of damage either

we already have courts and torts to cover those rare occasions

"Rare occasions"? Really?

Edit: right, dogs never ever urinate inside house. It is extraordinary event, that should involve courts!

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The ordinance does not prohibit a pet deposit.

No, that was already separately prohibited (capped extremely low). Lol.

It's an insurance premium of sorts. They are statistically much more likely to have a problem, so they adjust they rent to make the deal a positive expected value again.

Urine soaking into a subfloor can easily cost more to repair than the security deposit, and recovering damages in court is hard and expensive in its own right (if the person even has money to take).

Not to mention, even when there's no apparent damage, a pet apartment can require extra cleaning to get rid of odors and dander.

It just makes sense for the landlord to price in a potential headache.

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