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The lease said 'one pet' and I read the fine print, now there are 4 cats on paper
I was sitting in my kitchen in Boise reading my apartment lease for the third time because my girlfriend wanted to move in with her two cats and I already had two. Buried on page 4 it says 'one pet' but the definitions section never actually says what counts as a pet. I checked with a friend who works at a property law office downtown and she said the standard lease language in Idaho only bans animals that cause damage or noise, not a head count. So we wrote a short letter asking them to define the term, and the manager basically admitted they never enforce it past the first complaint. Six weeks later all four cats are listed on the lease addendum and we pay one pet deposit instead of four. Turns out the whole thing rides on sloppy contract wording, not some big legal rule. Does anyone here know if that same gap works for dogs, or did I just get lucky with a lazy landlord?
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angela_patel758d ago
Laughed a little at the idea of putting four cats on paper like they are employees on a payroll sheet. That said, the gap you found probably is not about cats at all, it is about the manager never wanting to deal with it, because a dog that barks all day gets complaints fast and then the same sloppy wording will not save you. My sister tried this in Nampa with two labs and it worked until a neighbor called about the noise, then the manager suddenly remembered how to read page 4. So the wording buys you time, not a free pass.
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