Long story short...

I am moving out at the end of the month. I put a $600 deposit down back when i first leased the apartment. During my stay at the apartment I got 2 cats and the apartment complex charged me $250 for each cat.

My question is...

Does the $500 that i spent on pet fees go towards things that need to replaced in the apartment?

7/19/2008 8:18:05 PM

no, that's just pet rent. any damages are on you to come of out the sec. deposit and more.

7/19/2008 8:22:59 PM

did they call it a pet fee or a pet deposit?

If they called it a pet fee, they planned to keep it from the start, if it's a pet deposit, they usually use it as additional security deposit (like, they need to replace the carpet because its covered in cat), but expect it to be taken anyway...

7/19/2008 8:46:01 PM

The only thing I see in the lease is a "Pet Deposit" However when I signed the lease I didn't have either of the cats and was charged the $250 for each cat when I got them and it wasn't added in the terms of the lease.

I have the canceled checks for the pet fees/deposit.

7/19/2008 8:57:19 PM

This is why you just don't tell them about the cats

7/22/2008 9:15:59 PM

at least $250 is reasonable

it was $500 per for mine

7/22/2008 10:01:42 PM

How can these places get away with charging such ridiculous amounts of money for people to keep pets??

7/22/2008 10:05:38 PM

^^^ I tried that for a while, but the maintenance workers came one day to change the filters(even though it was a day or so early) and they saw the cat.

7/22/2008 10:27:36 PM

which apartment was this?

7/22/2008 10:27:59 PM

I live in Greensboro...well lived in Greensboro. The apartments were the "Addison Pointe" apartments owned by the "signature group(i think)"

but I should be getting most of my money back. They will only need to replace the carpet and do some touch up painting on the walls. I already replaced some things so I don't get charged and will be here when I get my final inspection to make sure they don't charge me for things that were just replaced.

7/22/2008 10:30:53 PM

^^^ Aww that sucks I had a cat in an apartment for 4 years and managed to not pay. But she was also an indoor/outdoor cat so we would just leave her outside or on the porch on days we thought maintenance people would be coming.

7/22/2008 10:37:28 PM

Quote :

"How can these places get away with charging such ridiculous amounts of money for people to keep pets??"

i have no idea but i dont do anything when my cats go for the carpet or other apartment owned items

i really fail to see how a cat (or two) could do that much damage in a one bedroom apartment unless they just completely pissed everywhere, as in an unlivable amount of piss

7/22/2008 10:50:36 PM

^ Actually, I have a friend who used to be an apartment manager in Georgia. They had to evict a woman because she was a cat lady. When the cops removed her from the apartment they found over 20 cats in a one bedroom apartment. There were piles of shit knee high in certain parts of the apartment. They actually had to hire a hazmat team to come in and gut the unit because the city deemed it a health hazard. She said even after all of that they couldn't rent the unit for at least a year because you could still smell the cat piss.

She has pictures on her computer of all the damage. I wanted to puke when I saw it

So yeah, it can get bad, but only an irresponsible waste of human flesh would let it get to that point.

[Edited on July 22, 2008 at 11:13 PM. Reason : n't]

7/22/2008 11:12:18 PM

My cats are good about using the litter box. But the apartment complex might replace the carpet due to pet dander and hair that a vacuum won't pick up.

The big things that one of my cats liked to mess up were the blinds.

7/23/2008 6:10:25 AM

it depends. At the house I am renting now, they charge me $200 NON REFUNDABLE pet deposit plus $35 a month pet rent for my dog. The $200 goes towards exterminating the house and cleaning the carpet, which they have to do after someone with a pet vacates (in case of fleas, etc) Then my $900 REFUNDABLE deposit goes towards any damages above and beyond cleaning the carpet.

My last apartment was the same way. Paid $175 NON REFUNDABLE pet deposit to cover extermination and carpet and $10 a month pet rent. Didn't have to pay any other deposits because my credit and rental history was good enough.

7/23/2008 9:54:37 AM

Quote :

"How can these places get away with charging such ridiculous amounts of money for people to keep pets?? "

it's a case of the irresponsible few ruining it for the rest of us. For every pet owning resident who's pet does minimal to no damage, there's one who's pet tears up the place.

7/23/2008 10:05:13 AM

Plus some people don't know how to pick up after their dog poops on the common ground which means the maintenance workers have to clean it up.

7/23/2008 10:38:21 AM

Quote :

"My cats are good about using the litter box. But the apartment complex might replace the carpet due to pet dander and hair that a vacuum won't pick up."

any vacuum worth it's salt is able to pick up hair and dander. i've got a $50 bagless bissell that picked up stuff that was 20 years old out of the carpet. kept running it over the same area until nothing came up.

of course if you have a canister or bag vacuum, i could see how you would have problems.

Quote :

"Then my $900 REFUNDABLE deposit goes towards any damages above and beyond cleaning the carpet."

that's acceptable.

7/23/2008 10:57:04 AM

Quote :

"This is why you just don't tell them about the cats"

exactly...the pet fee at my last apartment was $300 NON-REFUNDABLE

bump that...i just lied through my teeth and when it came time to move out and they tried to bill me for it, i asked them to prove i had a dog there (i had no security deposit because my credit was good enough, so it's not like they could take it out)

7/23/2008 11:56:27 AM

Just got in touch with the property manager and they found an error in their leases.

On the front page it lists "Pet Fees/Deposits" under Refundable Deposits but later on it lists the "pet fees/deposits" as non-refundable. They say that I was the first person to ever point it out to them. To remedy the conflict they are refunding all but $100 of all of my deposits.

That $100 will be used to cover the cost of debugging the apartment(fleas and ticks).

Even though some of the people that have worked in the apartment office have been douches, the property manager has always been really nice to me. She got really pissed when she found out that the apartment office had a package of mine in the office for 6 months yet when I would go there to pick it up, they could never find it. A couple people were fired after that one...

7/29/2008 1:00:09 PM