Why is it so hard to find an apt. that accepts Cats in Louisiana?...........

Hi. I am trying to move to one part of south east louisiana to another, and am having a difficult time finding an apt. that accepts cats. I was shocked when I moved to this state to find out if you have a small pet(usually large pets aren't allowed in apts.), that you have to give a nonrefundable deposit( usually $300 or something), but I didn't have my cats when I moved here. Now that I have cats, and want to move to a better area for my children, I can't find any that accepts cats. I plan on saying I only have 1 cat(maybe 2 if the apt seems friendly), but I see it outrageous to have to pay so much for a cat. Yesterday I called an apt. agency and they had the gall to ask if the cat was declawed, because they only accept declawed animals .Any ideas what I can do here?

Yeah, moving with cats is no fun. One place I looked at wanted $850 deposit on just the cats! Unbelievable!

Here's some links that may help you in your search....

From the Humane Society's Links to Sites that List Pet-Friendly Apartments and a few I found on Google:

National:

www.apartmentguide.com
www.apartments.com
www.dogfriendly.com
www.forrent.com
www.101apartments.com
www.onlineapartmentguide.com
www.peoplewithpets.com
www.petapartments.net
www.petrent.net
www.petswelcome.com
www.rent.net
http://www.rentnet.com/apartments/mme/pets/

Louisiana:
www.colonialprop.com

Catlover,

The reason many landlords are tough on pets is that too many pet owners are irresponsible.

We once owned a rent house and we permitted the tenants to keep "one cat," without a pet-damage deposit, after they assured us that it was completely litter-box-broken and never scratched anything but its scratching post. They seemed nice enough. Interestingly enough, this was in East Texas, not far from you.

One year later when our tenants vacated the premises without any advance notice we discovered the wall-to-wall carpeting both downstairs and upstairs to be ruined by urine and feces, the urine stains being so repetitive that they even discolored the hardwood floors under the carpets, and they had to be professionally sanded and refinished in order to remove the odor. Custom curtains in three rooms were in tatters at the bottom obviously due to clawing. As we have always had cats ourselves it appeared obvious to us that several, if not many, cats had been permitted to do their thing in the house under no control whatsoever.

To repair this damage cost us in the four figures -- much, much more than what you and others on this thread might consider to be an outrageously high demand for a deposit.

I think you may have observed on TCS that we are confirmed catlovers, but never again did we permit pets of any breed in our rent house. We had learned our lesson, and responsible pet owners had to be lumped together in our minds with our prior tenants -- our judgment with respect to a tenant's responsibility had proved to be faulty. We had to harden our hearts.

All the very best,

I understand your point , but I completly disagree with you. I have 3 cats, and my apt. complex does not allow animals offically, so when the manager comes to check something, I hide everything in a bedroom, and she has never suspected me having any animals. I own my own carpet shampooer, and a cat tree, and various cat scratching devices. First of all you can't judge all pet owners , by some idiot, who is not a responsible pet owner, it is like me saying, because I was assaulted by an African-American, I will not associate with them, because they will all asault me. If you truly love animals as you say, you would have compassion for those of us who also love animals, and are not able , at the present time, to live in a house of our own.
One more thing, I don't think a landlord, can really think it is possible that carpet will last for more than one tenant or two, it does get dirty very quickly, unless you are a spotless person. Peace. mr. brown. cat.

Don't just take people's word for it. But don't shun them all, either.

If an owner is suspicious, they should ask for references, vet records, and so on, not just make it an automatic "no."

When I found my present apartment, the landlord allowed pets (or maybe just cats). Ten years ago, a new landlord said "no pets". However since I was already living here, my cats were allowed to stay.

I will not lie about the number of cats I have. I was evicted once for having two cats instead of one.