Tenant rights to pets? Some Kamloops landlords are pushing back
Landlords in most provinces, including BC, have the right to ban tenants from having pets in their homes but animal advocates are petitioning to change that. Some landlords fear that change could happen and hurt their rental businesses.
Kamloops resident Jay Barlow is a retired pensioner who has been renting two duplexes — that’s four rental units — for two decades and has always kept his rental units pet free.
“If the government wants to regulate the allowing of pets, they should buy property and deal with it themselves," Barlow said. "I don’t want to lose money to irresponsible tenants and their pets."
He said allowing pets in his rental homes should be his decision, not the government's.
In July, Humane Canada, a federation of SPCAs and humane societies, launched a parliamentary petition to lobby the government to end pet restrictions in rental housing in the new Canadian Renters Bill of Rights proposed in the 2024 federal budget.
According to the petition, tenants with pets face systemic discrimination and struggle to find suitable housing, which contributes to mental health challenges and housing insecurity. Young renters, seniors and those with disabilities are disproportionately affected.
One of the top three reasons for surrendering pets to shelters is the loss of housing, and animal shelters across the country are in crisis and at capacity.
Barlow said it isn’t fair to put the problem on landlords who are already struggling with rising tax and insurance costs, and the time and costs of ongoing maintenance. There are tenants that don’t clean up after their dogs, and the animals can’t be stopped from digging, barking and scratching doors leaving damages that, he said, far exceed the damage deposit.
“You can have a nice three-bedroom half duplex at a reasonable rent and now you have someone in there with Rottweilers. Your nice floors and doors will be ruined, your yard will be dug up. We’re allowed to charge a half month’s rent for damage deposit and they don’t give us permission to raise damage deposits for units with pets.”
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Barlow has a no-pet policy on his lease agreements but makes exceptions sometimes. For example he allows a senior cat that is litter box trained.
He said a tenant once brought in cats that peed on the carpets that had to be thrown away and replaced, and then there was a woman who had ferrets.
“The lady had five breeding ferrets she put in cages on a carpet in the basement bedroom and the males were spraying on the walls. It took us a month to get the smell out, thousands (of dollars) in renovations and I lost two months of renting out the unit. We can’t claim our personal labour when it comes time for taxes.”
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Barlow’s three-bedroom half duplex rentals are currently well below market price at $1,200 per month, have fully-fenced yards and are in good condition.
“You get dogs in there, it’s going to ruin it for everybody,” he said. “If people can afford the high cost of caring for three dogs that could be what is inhibiting them from buying a place of their own.”
Kamloops resident and landlord Luci-Anne Tremblay echoed Barlow’s concerns in an email to iNFOnews on Aug. 17. She also has a no-pet policy but some tenants snuck pets in.
“I had a tenant with rabbits. The rabbits were in a cage (without a bottom) in the middle of the living room, it ruined the carpet, under carpet and plywood floor,” the email read. “I had a tenant with ferrets, this one was $4,000 in damage. I had a tenant with a snake and its lunch-mice escaped. Electricity and walls had to be redone.”
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Tremblay never had a tenant sneak a pet dog into a unit because dogs are “harder to hide.”
“Dogs bark when the owner is not there and other than calling Community Services for a non-stop barking dog, not much can be done. If the city answers all the non-stop barking calls and reports it to the owner with a fine, I may change my pet policy."
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The closing date to sign Humane Canada's petition is Nov. 2.
"We, the undersigned, citizens of Canada, call upon the House of Commons to include Canadian tenants with pets in a legally binding, nationwide Canadian Renters' Bill of Rights with a specific provision for companion animals, voiding any no pet clauses in tenancy agreements so that tenants with pets are no longer excluded from rental housing," the petition reads.
Barlow is hoping someone will launch a counter petition.
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