Renting with pets

AKA: Suzanne naively assumed that a young, hardworking, clean, non-smoking, well-referenced married couple could find a decent place to live within a reasonable commute with a minimum of effort.

It's moving time in my household. When internet and local listings came up short, we took a Sunday and literally drove through every residential area in 6 small-to-medium-sized rural towns with a combined population of about 40,000 people looking for For Rent signs.

There were 20 places available. If you had any pets then there were 5 available. If one of your pets was a dog over 20 lbs, there were 3 places available. And if you had a dog of any size that looked like its pedigree contained pit bull, Rottweiler, or chow, then the number of available rentals was zero.

I'll come back to breed bias later. First, about that pet bias:

When we were applying for one of the apartments, I expressed to the manager how happy I was to find a place where I could bring my pet. She said hers was the only apartment complex in the area that allowed "large" dogs (Zelda is 33 lbs). "And it's silly," she said, "in all the years I've done this job, small dogs cause more damage than big ones." She laughed, "and don't even get me started on what children can do to a place."

Bingo. My opinion is now officially validated by someone in the business.

Pet Connection had a good article about this a while back. http://www.petconnection.com/blog/2007/04/30/looking-for-a-rental-your-dog-better-be-good-and-probably-small/

I think pet bias and breed bias from landlords (and insurance companies) stem from the same thing. There's certainly no data that says dogs of a certain breed or size cause more damage or are more dangerous than others or are more destructive to property than other factors (like kids). I'm not disputing a home owner's right to set these restrictions, but I do dispute the logic behind them.

The most expensive damage done to my current rental was caused by my husband. The wear-and-tear caused by my pets pales in comparison. Yet nowhere on the rental applications did it ask if you owned a careless husband.

One of the other apartments I called told me, "we technically don't allow pets, but all you need to do is get a note from a doctor that you need your dog as a companion and you can keep it. Any doctor around here will do that for you, it's no big deal."

If I was in a position to choose between hmm, bending the law, and losing a beloved pet, I wouldn't think twice. And the result is the same as if the place had just allowed the dog in the first place. I don't think this is a situation that's useful for anyone. Not the animals, or the renters, or the property owners.

In the end, if we wanted to live in a place that wasn't too small and/or falling down around us, and allowed all our pets without any "fudging" on the application, there was only one rental to choose from. It was (you guessed it) the most expensive and barely in our price range.

This is yet another reason why I cannot wait to buy a house.

Hummers

My parents have been putting out humming bird feeders for about fifteen years. In the last three, the population visiting their house has exploded. Suddenly, the four feeders have to bed refilled almost once a day. During the 'hot' season (ie, right now, after they've returned from their wintering grounds and are setting up nests and sitting eggs) there's an almost constant presence at the feeders. Males establish territories around each feeder and fight each other and watch females come and drink. They're fierce little things. As my mom says, if they were the size of magpies, you wouldn't be able to hike in the woods without body armor.













I've never tried to photograph humming birds before. My lens was barely up to the task, but we made out OK.

Ixchel

I realized one of my pets has been neglected on this blog. I never want to be accused of being exothermicist, so here I formally present to you Ixchel.





She's a natural colored, many generations captive-bred Honduran milk snake. She and a brother from the same clutch were 'surplus' from the breeder (ie, didn't carry both recessive genes he was going for; he's also a reptile rescuer, so don't think too badly of him). She was free to whoever wanted her. Because of the geographic area her ancestors lived, I named her after a Mayan goddess (pronounced EE-shell).







Here she is when I brought her home, only a few months old:


Today she's about 4'4" long and barely fits in the lightbox:




... and is a rather uncooperative subject to photograph, anyway.







Hondurans (Lampropeltis triangulum hondurensis) are the largest of the milk snakes, reaching lengths of up to 6 feet and living 20 or more years. They're supposed to be a little on the aggressive side for their group. Indeed, Ixchel's brother bit me several times, once dangling from my arm like a rubber hose attached to a binder clip. Ixchel has never bitten though, even when I've been dumb enough to reach into her cage with my hands smelling of rodent. She's a very mellow snake and I'm glad to have her in my life.

Spring is...

Wild flowers.



First swim of the year.





Optimistic beavers (in a couple months this area will be completely dry and infested with bipedal primates)




Helping dad with firewood (this is a stack of big leaf maple, the light stuff has been down for two years and is already seasoned, the dark stuff only a few months. The difference is striking)





Stick chewing. Oh, wait, that's every season, not just spring...

Links for a lazy Thursday

• Encoding poetry into bacterial DNA - This is pretty neat, but I doubt it will work the way he wants. Bacteria are rather careless with their DNA. They trade, clip, chop, drop and otherwise mess with their own DNA a lot. A highly specific sequence wouldn't remain unchanged for very long. He might have better luck with a creature that has mitochondrial DNA.

• Beautiful video: "Nature by Numbers" (seen at bioephemera, an awesome blog, btw)

• New species of ancient human identified

• Mosquito Control with Lasers - I hope this is the future of pest control. No more broad spectrum chemicals. Precise control of exactly the pest you want to kill with few environmental effects.

• Gardening: Let the bugs chew on your plants