calliecritturs
Posted : 3/8/2009 4:59:07 PM
Liesje
When we were apartment shopping, I found the higher end the place (like nicer townhouse communities), the tighter the restrictions both on breed and size. Looking at 2BR, 1/1.5bath lower end apartments it seemed they either allowed dogs or they didn't.
LIes makes another super good point here which is part of what I was talking about. But I actually forgot to spell out (imagine that .. ME? forgetting to SSAY something *sigh and rolling eyes*)
Unless you have lived in various different parts of the country (or even in other countries) one thing that may not be at all obvious (and which is also at the heart of this) -- when I lived up in Western NY State and Rochester, if you wanted an apartment it was usually part of someone's house. Apartment "complexes" were pretty much unheard of -- or VERY pricey -- maybe someone's rented out condo?? In Rochester I lived in a small apartment building -- maybe 14-15 small apartments in one brick building, but not a complex of 10+ buildings under one "complex" rule. But mostly "getting an apartment" was a couple of rooms in a house MAYBE with your own entrance -- maybe a duplex or the top floor in a house or something.
But here in the urban south? That doesn't even exist. Most people wouldn't even contemplate renting out part of their HOUSE ... egad NO. Here in Florida a "basement" doesn't even exist and 2 story homes are rare (yeah, they really are) so an "apartment" is virtually always in an apartment complex.
SO you get something like a manager who lives "onsite" or a group of people (sometimes an owner or company who is far far away) making "rules" simply based on what is acceptable (and cheap) insurance wise NOT an individual landlord who may bend this way or that.
Now that may be unheard of for some of you, but I know Erica knows what I mean. Here apartment = an apartment complex and very often those are owned/managed by some other company and either rules are enforced, or maybe aren't. Then you run the risk of coming in and signing a lease (which "lease" was an unknown concept where I lived up north -- no one had them!) but here you may get into a lease under one property manager and then suddenly a few months down the line a new manager takes over and decides to "enforce" rules you didn't even know were there and suddenly you get a 3 day notice to leave because you have a pet that isn't acceptable (even tho you may have had that pet when you moved in).
Someone above made the point of how much different locales may see this and that has been my major point. Some of you may never have moved from state to state, or from suburbia to city or country residential, but wow, it can make SUCH a huge difference. I think that's obvious in the completely different answers that have been given here -- for some having a big dog has never been a big deal. For others (and Laurelin made the point in a stallar way) even going from one small dog to two can RADICALLY change how easy it may be to get a place to live.