Kitty Cat. Many years ago, a man applied to rent a house that I owned in Oakland. He told me that he had a cat named Kitty Cat. I had advertised that I would allow a cat. I asked the man some questions about his cat. I don’t recall exactly what he said, but whatever it was, it made me suspicious. I asked him if he had a photo of Kitty Cat with him. He said Yes. He opened his wallet, took out a photograph, and handed it to me, and that is how I found out that Kitty Cat was, in fact, a western mountain lion, also known as a cougar or a puma. I don’t know how big Kitty Cat was, but
I recall that the guy told me that Kitty Cat ate 10 pounds of horsemeat a day, every day, so it must have been a pretty big cat. Technically, the man hadn’t lied to me. A mountain lion is a cat, and I did advertise that I would allow a cat in the house; nevertheless, I turned down his application anyway. Because the man said that the mountain lion was a ‘pet’, I could do that. If he had told me that he was disabled and that Kitty Cat was a ‘therapy mountain lion’, I don’t know what I would have done. I don’t know if could have legally refused to rent to him. The man had excellent credit and lots of money. He was an heir to a famous San Francisco coffee fortune. Many years later, in 2010, Berkeley police shot and killed a mountain lion in a parking lot near Chez Panisse. Since it is now illegal to own a mountain lion in California, the police think that someone was secretly keeping the mountain lion as a pet and that it escaped. The lion appeared to be well fed and in good health. I have wondered if that mountain lion might have been Kitty Cat, but I will never know. What Is Reasonable? Under Federal law, landlords have to make ‘reasonable accommodations’ for the needs of disabled tenants. That includes the right to keep therapy and emotional support animals. The problem is that there is no list of what animals qualify. ANY animal can be a therapy or emotional support animal. An emotional support animal can be a kangaroo, a pig, a chimpanzee, an alpaca, a horse, a falcon, or even an alligator. It can be anything. You know, ‘reasonable’ is a tricky word. Every rational businessman wants to be perceived as reasonable by his customers, but who gets to decide whether or not he is being reasonable? Suppose an applicant for an apartment shows a landlord a note from his psychiatrist that says that he needs a kangaroo for emotional support. Who gets to decide whether allowing that tenant to keep a kangaroo in his apartment is a reasonable accommodation, the landlord or the man with the kangaroo? I have long believed that HUD (Department of Housing and Urban Development) should publish a list of what animals can be kept as therapy and emotional support animals. The list should be short and specific and take public health and safety into consideration. HUD has the power to do this. I believe that someday a landlord somewhere in the U.S. is going to rent an apartment to somebody with a therapy, companion, or emotional support animal that has no business being in an apartment, and that as a result, another tenant in the building or a neighbor will be killed. I think that is inevitable. When somebody is killed as a result of this irresponsible policy, HUD or Congress may finally change the rules. It’s too bad that someone may have to die first. This is a subject that I really feel very strongly about.Tag Archives: kitty cat
Can You Be Evicted For Keeping A 500 Pound Bengal Tiger In Your Apartment?
Yes you can. A man was evicted from his apartment in a high-rise apartment house in New York City after the manager discovered that the tenant had a Bengal tiger in his apartment and called the police. The police were reluctant to enter the apartment through the front door, so a policeman with a rifle was lowered from the roof of the building on a rope. The policeman shot the tiger with a tranquilizing dart through a window.
When the tiger was sedated, animal control officers entered the apartment and removed the tiger. The tenant fought the eviction. He told the judge that his lease allowed him to have a cat, and a tiger is a cat. The judge agreed that a tiger is a cat but evicted the tenant anyway. The judge said that a reasonable person would know that a lease provision allowing a tenant to have a cat was not intended to apply to a 500 pound Bengal tiger. I think the judge was right, but I may be prejudiced because I do not allow Bengal tigers in my apartments. (I wonder how long it would take my insurance company to cancel my policies if they discovered that there were Bengal tigers in my buildings.)
220 Volts For Kitty Cat. I frequently advise other landlords to ask questions when an applicant for an apartment says that he has a cat. I do this myself. Many years ago, I got an application to rent a house on Shafter Avenue in Oakland from a man who told me that he had a cat named ‘Kitty Cat.’ Initially, I didn’t pay much attention to that. Later in the interview, the applicant asked me if the garage had a 220 volt electrical outlet. I said ‘No.’ He asked me if he could get a 220 volt outlet installed in the garage. He offered to pay for it himself. His question piqued my curiosity. I wanted to know why he wanted a 220 volt electrical outlet. I have been in this business for over 40 years, and I have never seen a 220 volt outlet in a garage. The man said that he had a 50 cubic foot commercial freezer, and it ran on 220 volts. I was astonished. That is a huge freezer. It’s the kind of freezer is made for restaurants and hotels, not home use. I asked him why he owned such a big freezer. He said: “Oh, it’s not for me. It’s for Kitty Cat.” I thought the guy was crazy! People don’t buy industrial freezers for their cats. Something was very wrong with this guy’s story. I asked the guy a series of questions about his freezer and his cat, but answers seemed deliberately evasive. Finally, I told the guy that I had to see this cat. I asked the applicant if he had a photograph of his cat with him. He said he did. He showed me a photo of ‘Kitty Cat’ that he kept in his wallet. That is how I found out that ‘Kitty Cat’ was actually a mountain lion. He told me that ‘Kitty Cat’ ate 10 pounds of horsemeat a day, which is why he owned a commercial freezer. The freezer held 500 pounds of horsemeat. I thanked the guy for his application and sent him on his way. I decided to rent the house to somebody else.
The woman that I wound up renting the house to also had a cat, but her cat weighed 6 pounds. Even though this all happened a long time ago, I still remember her cat. It was a cross-eyed white Siamese cat with black ears. The cat was friendly, but whenever I was in the house, the cat would sit on the kitchen countertop and stare at me intently and cross-eyed until I left. That cat’s stare was downright spooky! Well – now I ask questions about cats!