[ffumarola]

I have a pit bull who is amazingly well behaved, including having a CGC (Canine Good Citizen) training certificate. However, moving in to an apartment in San Francisco was damn near impossible. I was on the brink of leaving the bay area because of how hard it was to find someone willing to rent to me, until I found a private landlord who took pity on me.

Many times I had friends suggest I just lie and say my dog was an emotional support animal. It was quite tempting because of how awful it can be to find a place to rent in SF with a dog. If you think it's bad and you're not a pet owner, imagine it being 10x worse. The only reason I didn't do that was because I didn't want to contribute to rules like this which make it harder for people who really need the ESA.

[chrisper]

I do not want to say it is your fault for these rules, neither do I want to do the "pit bull stereotype," but when you chose the breed you did, you should have known that you will have issues finding a place with that breed.

If this is only the case in the Bay Area, then my bad. I only lived there, but of the few apartments that allowed pets, almost all of them did not like pit bulls, huskies, etc. So getting a pit bull while living in an apartment is a bad idea imho.

(But I'd have chosen the dog over bay area as well!)

[Judgmentality]

I have a labrador and it's almost impossible for me to find an apartment either, I even upped my price to $5k a month and I still can't find anything that isn't awful (and that's ignoring the price).

[chrisper]

Is it because of the weight limits? I have a lab too and remember having that issue as well.

I only had found two places that were okay with my dog back then.

[Judgmentality]

The first problem is most places are not pet friendly at all. Then when you find a place that does accept pets, they almost never accept large pets. And even the places that supposedly accept large pets are always going to choose the tenant that does not have a pet, even if you offer more money. In SF, where there are multiple bidders on everything, it's almost impossible to find a place if you have a large dog. As someone who's lived with large dogs his whole life I have always had this problem, but not nearly as bad as it currently is in SF.

I've been so frustrated with this lately I actually tried to think of a way to solve this problem from a business perspective, but haven't come up with anything much better than being a super niche insurance company which would have an incredibly hard time getting buy-in from landlords (who hold all the power already). There's no doubt in my mind pet owners, or would-be pet owners, would be willing to pay more for their loved ones - but how to create a market for that when the landlords hold all the cards is something I haven't figured out yet.

[ffumarola]

And "large" is a loose definition out here. There are some places with weight restrictions at 50 lbs, and I've started seeing more and more at 35 lbs or even 25 lbs!

[BrandoElFollito]

I wonder how much of a stereotype this is.

One usually does not hear about a labrador or a chihuahua killing its owner or a child. This is usually a pit bull, or another not so kind looking dog.

We had two dogs, all of them were from a refuge and were a mix of labrador and squirrel (or whatever was at the party that night). They were more of less intelligent, very friendly (we do not deserve dogs). I wondered how much they would become beasts in worse conditions, compared to z pit bull.

[ffumarola]

One of the problems is that people misclassify pit bulls all the time. Dog bites someone and looks like a terrier type? Pit bull!

There have actually been studies to show that the precision in which shelter workers and other professionals can identify a pit bull is startingly low and the error rate of mislabeling non-pits as pit bulls is surprisingly high.

[BrandoElFollito]

This is a good point.

What I really meant is that there may be some races (pure of mixed) which are more prone to aggressivity.

I think that, statistically, a mix of labrador & something vs. a mix of pit bull & something will be more dangerous - because of the pedigree.

[ffumarola]

Hah, was waiting for that response :)

I chose her 12 years ago when I lived on the east coast where it seems like the majority of dogs are pit bulls. I never have heard of anyone having issues renting in New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, nor DC, all cities in which I lived in over there. It wasn't until I came out here a few years ago that I had an issue and realized that this issue even existed.

[cobookman]

FYI most large apartment management firms in the bay area are so used to calling out fake ESA animals, that they'll end up finding out.

[ffumarola]

Find out what? There is nothing to find out, it's easy to prove any dog is an ESA with the help of a friendly doctor.

You may be suggesting that lying about service animals is easily discoverable, which is indeed true. This is already illegal.

[cobookman]

They'll call your doctor and go to the full extent of the law if your animal is really an ESA. Sure you can still go to a doctor and mention that you're depressed an how an animal will really help you out...etc.

But I wouldn't assume that large apartment complexes just stand by idle. Most are tired of fake ESA animals that cause them insurance & tenant issues.

[closeparen]

There are a lot of things I like about city/renter/transit-oriented life, but if I'm forced to choose between that and a dog, I'll choose the dog.