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Should I sneak a cat into my apartment?
So I live in a duplex, it's a house with two stories. I live in the basement apartment with my roommate, and two other girls live in the apartment above us. Me and my roommate both want cats extremely bad. I volunteer at the humane society, and there is a cat there I've been wanting for a long time. In the lease we both agreed to no pets on the premises. The girls in the apartment above us signed the same lease, and over winter break they had a dog in their apartment for about a month and they never got caught. I talked to my landlord about it and also offered to pay a deposit, but she said no and that past tenants used to be able to have pets but they ruined the apartment. I don’t know whether or not to just sneak the cat into the apartment. The landlord lives about an hour or two away from us, and her and her husband never come to the house unless I ask them to come fix something. If they need to come to the apartment they have to let us know a couple days in advance so in that time I could move the cat somewhere else for that day and then bring her back. I’m almost 100% sure that they would never find out, but if they do catch us we would get evicted and have to pay $500 for the “damages,” even though I offered to pay that as a deposit and she said no. Is it worth it to just sneak the cat in?
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Want to answer more questions in the Domesticity category?
Maybe give some free advice about: Pets?
I DO agree with Dragonfly on this one in certain ways because think about this. Often times when you have an animal (like a cat or dog) they have a "natural scent" that they let off ok. Think about when you walk into the home of someone who owns cats or dogs....and HOW the house smells, and HOW theres fur all over everything because lets face it (animals can shed ALOT) so even if you WERE to find someone to care for the animal while your landlords come over to fix something in the house, remember THEY WERNT BORN YESTERDAY. A good landlord can walk into a house and just SMELL animal. Its not that hard to do. They'll then start to look around a should they see ANY hints of an animal having been there IE A kitty bowl you forgot to hide or tossed in the sink thinking they wouldnt notice, a litter box, toys you bought the cat, FUR all over the carpet, blankets, and clothing.....i mean its more difficult to "hide" the remnants of an animal you have living there with you then you think.
Landlords have many many tenants over the years ok, and they know what to look for even if youve done your best to clean. They can smell urine, poop, fur smell, and get pretty familiar with "scents" and are pretty much "on the alert" when they walk into a unit they own. Ive lived in nothing but rented homes my entire life and had open relationships with all our family and then eventually when i moved out on my own landlord relationships. Alot of them actually have a sort of mental check list they go down when they entire the unit for anything.
My last landlord who was also our on sight manager was VERY friendly with us and when i asked him about pets he told me pretty much everything above that ive mentioned here and that there IS a very small catch to the lease (idk if yours is included you might want to look over it again) but he told me that technically small animals, like little birds or fish or lizards (anything that LIVES inside its enclosure) does not count as a pet and is considered "decorative" and THOSE dont need approval. But like i said we had a standard no pet lease so idk if this applies to yours but if you have to have some kind of a pet because it makes you feel better then something small that lives in its enclosure would probably be a better idea.
Also just so you know Alot of landlords like cats or dogs the LEAST because their urine and poop can be the most damaging to a unit. Should the cat piss somewhere or "spray" it can sometimes take as much as actually stripping that wall or floor down with chemicals and then re-doing it.
If you have anymore questions or need to talk, feel free to pm me, my former landlord and i are still in touch and hes a really cool guy and if i ask him something involving rental agreements he will gladly help out where he can.
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Just based on morality and truth alone, you already know the answer to your question. You've only written because you want someone to agree with you. I love animals too but I've never brought in pets while I lived in a place that doesnt allow it.
You are at a point in life where you need to decide some very important basics of how you will live it. Thats not something I can decide for you but I can at least share a few perspectives of my own based on what I've observed with other people, even friends and family.
In the time of your grand or great grand parents, being a person of your word was a very important thing. That meant that anything you spoke and agreed to without having a lawyer make a legal document that you signed, you kept your word or promise, whether anyone could catch you sticking to it or not. It's not a matter of getting away with something but what you are opening the door to in your moral life. I've seen those who were good people start this way, cheating, or going against the rules or promises they made in just one area but when they kept getting away with it and not caught, it became easier to do this in other areas of life. You need to decide whether you;re going to be a trustworty person of your word or not in life cus years from now, you could have taken yourself down a very bad path and find it hard to make your way back to who you were before making these personal choices and compromises based on desires of your own. Granted, giving an animal is a home is a very good thing but only if you live somewhere where that can be done.
I know someone whom the neighbor cats and even some strays were attracted to. She started feeding and letting those cats come in and stay for periods of the day in her home even though her landlord said no animals in the house. She has alot more to lose if caught. She's married and has two teen kids. But she can't work due to medical issues and is kinda bored and so loves the company of the cats. Well, after years of never getting caught having a neighbors cat or stray in the house, she decided this past fall to purchase a kitten. So far she hasn't been caught but the price to pay will be hard indeed if they get kicked out cus the rent is much lower than most places and they survive on just his income and have had several unexpected debts to deal with recently and are actually doing very poorly financially and could not afford the cost of moving into a new place let alone the monthly rent on another place but she's gone against her husband and got the cat anyhow.
Some folks like to live by the rules, its okay as long as you don't get caught. But that is nothing more than your conscience trying to talk yourself into believing that your reasoning is solid and foolproof. Perhaps you'll never get caught and move on then to the Oh so tempting other areas of life where to withhold information, hide things and not be truthful or stick to promises you've made. Just think, in a relationship, long term or married, there are promises to be faithful to each other. Would you like it if the man applied your reasoning to the relationship and said, I can cheat on the side and its okay as long as I dont get caught even though I promised I would never do that. And the further reasoning that made it okay in his mind, "Well, the lady just got dumped by her husband and was lonely and feeling low self confidence and needed her confidence boosted so I was actually doing a good thing by paying attention to her and having sex with her. Would that reasoning fly with you?
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