xset

A cat too far

// October 27th, 2009 // Personal

So the GGF and I are in the process of trying to move house. We’re looking around at various flats to find something within our price range and feature requirements (maybe more on this later) but we keep running into a small snag … well two small furry snags to be more precise.

It turns out that the majority of landlords on this lovely island of ours have a serious objection to pets (which incidentally are nearly always classed alongside children despite the plainly obvious fact the kids can be infinitely more damaging to houses than most pets excluding perhaps the family who own a Rhino and have a tendency to get it a bit squiffy on barley wine) that is causing us a few problems.

What has amazed me is the range of reactions to be asked the (perfectly reasonable?) question “Are you ok with two cats?”. Some landlords have more or less ended the conversation right there as if we’d been asking to move in with a couple of pet cobras or similar. Some attempt to negotiate, indeed one woman who shall remain nameless (mostly because I’ve forgotten her name rather than out of any misguided desire to protect her anonymity) even went so far as to point out that 1 cat was ok but 2 would be unacceptable. Well that’s alright then! We’ll just decide which one of our two we like least and drop her off at the shelter shall we? Why would you even bother telling a prospective tenant that?

I have now taken on board a new strategy – don’t tell them about the cats until we’ve had a viewing and they’ve become quietly and greedily excited about getting two young professional people into their property and have invested an hour or so in the viewing (I’m very thorough when it comes to prospective homes as I’ve been burned in the past by dodgy electricity supplies, damp, crappy neighbours, more damp and trumped up utility bills … and that’s just our current flat). Then spring the question on them just as I’m confirming the deposit details.

I’ve yet to see if this will work any better but at least we can get out there seeing some properties on the off chance that we find the perfect flat and can move in without having to re home either of the two smaller members of our family!

(please note I resisted the considerable temptation to title this post How much pussy is too much? I figured you’d thank me for it in the long run