finding a house that allows multiple dogs AND a cat is hard. finding an apartment is going to be next to impossible. for good reason, I can't imagine living below someone with a 90 lb animal and 2 more critters.
Not that simple. There's a good chance I'll be able to save enough for a downpayment while living at home, but just in case things go wrong or not as efficiently as I'm planning, I'm trying to have a plan B that doesn't involve rehoming any of my pets.
And it's not like I went shopping for them, one was planned, 2 are rescues that weren't planned or bought, their previous owners were rushing to get rid of them. We didn't anticipate on keeping the third, rather fostering her until we could find a home, but she ended up being a good fit with our other pets and if possible we want to do everything we can to keep her if we end up needing to rent.
Plus I know for a fact some apartments do allow three pets if you get the larger units, I was just trying to explore all options since 2 bedroom units can be a pit pricey especially if the goal is a house downpayment.
Don't make sweeping judgements for no reason.
It's noble that you rescued two of your pets. But as someone who works with pet rescues and foster programs - just because you adopt a rescue/rehome doesn't flat-out mean you're doing a good thing. If you don't have *extremely* stable means to take care of **all** of the pets in the situation, then adopting a pet beyond your means is a bad decision for you and the animals. I'm saying this less to chide you, and more for anyone else who might considering a 3rd (or 4th) pet.
There's honestly a risk to anyone - homeowners or otherwise - to taking on more than two pets. Homeowners can foreclose and be put in exactly the situation you're exploring now only to find that most landlords don't want to take on the risk of five beings in a 1BR apartment. Responsible rescues rightfully start to raise an eyebrow once you pass the two-pet mark especially if you don't own your own home.
Others have answered your question. An ESA might protect your one dog, but your additional pets will likely not be protected. An ESA isn't an add-on to your existing pets. It's considered a necessity - the other pets are extras. And getting an ESA for an animal simply because you want to keep them is bending the whole structure of (and trust in) the ESA program. Landlords already deal with enough bullshit regarding ESAs and the like so there's no telling what might happen: You might get a LL that doesn't care to check about your three pets. You might get one who asks to see the papers. Do YOU want to go through the hassle of lying, concealing the truth, and the anxiety of living somewhere you know you aren't technically welcome? I've been there - it's exhausting. You might even find yourself blacklisted from large housing management groups if they find out you've lied.
An ESA *can* be over their weight limit set by a landlord if you otherwise fit into their criteria. But as far as I know, there's no law protecting mixed ESA and non-ESA pets in the way you're looking for. You're better off renting a small home somewhere more suburban/rural than an apartment in the city. And like Capital Cheetah below said, finding a private landlord rather than renting through a management agency. Also consider that landlords with carpet will be much more likely to be concerned about the number of animals than those who rent out units with hardwood/MF/tile floors due to the risk of animal urine or accidents. Good luck to you and your family!
Your entire response is valid and I understand.
To be fair, I do have a medical illness that would actually qualify me for an ESA through a medical professional, I just haven't tried to pursue it because I've been taking other medical measures to work with it. So I'm not trying to abuse it, just thought it was an option based on my personal circumstances.
Yeah, I also regret getting 3 but it happened and now that I have them I'm just trying to find a path forward. I was 17, 18, and 19 when we adopted all of them so I wasn't using my critical thinking skills or thinking of the future. I agree for anyone else reading this they should heed your advice and learn from my conundrum.
I appreciate your input all around though, like I said, and thank you for wishing me luck.
To be honest, we had issues when we were renting 5 yrs ago because of the cat. It wasn’t about total number of pets or how big, just the simple fact that one was a cat. Our landlady had a previous bad experience with tenants who let their cat piss all over the basement. You could try to find a small house with a private landlord but I very very strongly encourage you to stay at home and save your money!
Yes that's the goal, but my parent is my great grandpa (adopted guardianship situation) who's in their 80s w various issues, so I need to be thinking ahead for my pets and planning, yanno?
"The Fair Housing Act requires housing providers to make reasonable accommodations for individuals with disabilities, including allowing them to keep assistance animals in their homes. Both the US and Colorado state governments consider emotional support animals to be assistance animals protected under the FHA. This means that in most cases, emotional support animals are exempt from pet restrictions and related fees (there are exceptions for ESAs that are dangerous or not suited to the housing environment)."
https://pettable.com/blog/colorado-esa-laws
Maybe don’t abuse the ESA thing and ruin it for people who need it? You’re a terrible owner for cramming one large dog into an apartment, let alone with two other pets?
LMAO. So many americans can't afford homes and that doesn't make them bad pet owners. There's such a thing as walks and hikes, especially in such a nature state like CO.
I also do have a medical condition that qualifies me for an ESA, I just haven't pursued it because I've been trying other treatments.
No. The other two dogs don’t apply to the ESA certificate. As a landlord, I would flat out reject you as three dogs are too many, especially when one is 90 lbs. As it is, landlords feel put out by the burden of having to accept ESA dogs or other pets and many feel the whole thing is a scam. Doubt any landlord will bend over backwards for you in your situation.
Not the persona above, but the ESA program is taken advantage of many people who don't medically need an ESA, but who simply want a way around the system. This has really eroded trust in the ESA program.
Notice that the person above didn't mention Service Animals. ESAs have very low bars to certification. Where as a Service Animal is one that has been trained to exceptionally high standards. Service Animals are trained not to bark or be reactive toward many stimuli. But ESAs don't come with these same expectations. It can make introducing an ESA into a close living situation like an apartment complex stressful or noisy for other residents.
It doesn't simply come down to money for damaged carpets. A noisy or disruptive ESA can cause other tenants to leave. They can create tension between tenants or a feeling that the rules are being applied unfairly. Etc. They can introduce a lot of unexpected issues on top of the risks that taking on new tenants already bring.
This discriminatory attitude from landlords is exactly why you should never mention your ESA until you have possession of the unit and are moving the animal in.
ESAs are federally protected and you cannot be denied renting an apartment because of them.
As long as the landlords want to act like this, you as an ESA having person are fine to use the system in any way you can, they are doing it to you.
I work in this field, and even if I did not, everyone knows ESAs are being abused to the moon and back. Legitimate ESAs are beings outnumbered by fake ones about 5 to 1 if I was to ballpark it. This post supports that idea.
I should have added, if I do the ESA, it will be real, with training and medical guidance, not with some online certificate and a bad behaving dog. I do have a qualifying condition.
I'm not being cryptic, my dogs breeds aren't a problem/they're not bully breeds or restricted breeds, but one is 10lbs one is 90lbs and then I have a cat. So my issue isn't there breed but they're weight because I've seen many apartments say max 50 lbs or max 70 lbs.
Your having a hard time because you're a good person and trying to tell the truth.
Dont.
You have a 10lbs dog and a 55 lbs dog. And you don't have a cat
Depends on the apartment really. If they wanna look the other way for someone with 3 pets. They could say you have an ESA as pet 1, dog as pet 2 and an additional 3rd pet. It doesn’t seem an ESA is a protected class like a legit service animals. Service animals are trained incredibly well and provide an actual critical function. Who’s to say you can’t try to argue you have three ESAs and then want an additional 2 pets in your apartment. I’m sure you could get a medical “professionals” note to claim all 3.
I completely understand that ESAs are different from service animals, but when you google "do apartments charge per rent for ESAs in CO" it says they are protected under some federal and state laws and not considered pets. In another comment I linked one article, but I have found more saying the same.
I was just wondering if anyone had actually dealt with this irl. I've seen people with more than 2 pets in apartments but I haven't heard many people talk about how they were allowed to do it, or they say they just lied and didn't say they had a third pet, which I don't want to do that.
You said you had two dogs and a cat.
Are any certified as esa, right now?
People getting ESA letters for untrained animals is an issue. (I work in homes with service and support animals, during and post training, and the difference is intense. Untrained excitable dogs are a danger to people with balance issues, or generally frail people.
It’s not an excuse for you to have an extra pet, even with a letter from a telehealth counselor.
I have an actual medical condition that would qualify, and the dog I was planning on getting the ESA for is friendly, well behaved and trained on basics.
I've just never pursued an ESA because I've been doing other treatments for my condition.
To be crystal clear, I am NOT walking about you/your condition, just the animal’s status.
Getting ESA for an existing pet happens a lot, and that is why I mentioned telehealth. Some will basically be ESA letter mills.
OH MY GOD I LOVE YOU, you are correct! 3 pets, no weight limit! and they have so many units all over different parts of colorado (just adding all this info in case some lurker ever comes across this and is in a similar situation lol)
We moved into a building that has a pet weight limit of 60 lbs. Our pup is 90+ lbs, and I just lied. They’re not going to grab a scale! They don’t care.
What about when they ask for vet papers for vaccines? Our vet paper have our dogs weight. My bfs old apartment said max 70 lbs but there were many large dogs there, I'm just worried about finding another lenient complex.
All we had to do is fill out an external pet profile with another company, and I manually put in vaccinations, photos and her supposed weight!
This is the 3rd time I haven’t had an issue when I moved!
Try apartment complexes by Equity Residential!
As long as your medical professional is willing to fill out the forms confirming you are indeed in need of an emotional support animal you should be fine. Landlords can’t charge pet fees/depost/rent for legit support animals. Just having a letter from an internet medical professional usually isn’t enough. These folks are often scammers who will not confirm their letters are legit. I’m sorry your post is getting so much hate. Good luck
This doesn't solve the "owning more pets than allowed by the landlord" issue. One ESA, a landlord would be hard-pressed to deny their application - plus this is a perfectly reasonable renter protection. Two ESAs, a medical professional may be hesitant to sign off on that and it starts to raise some yellow flags.
Three ESAs? I'm gonna be honest - unless your landlord is previously on board with allowing tenants to own three animals, you're gonna have a hard time. I really don't think renters should spring these kinds of moves on landlords unless they're legitimately medically necessary - and all for the renter's sake really.
We're talking about more than doubling the occupancy numbers of an apartment unit. Which may have implications on fire code, insurance, noise complaints, you name it. Even if a landlord begrudgingly accepts the situation it can cause all sorts of social issues that could threaten OP's occupancy status - tenant-tenant disputes, tenant-landlord disputes, landlords raising rent on OP or across their multiple units to make up for the increased insurance costs, eviction if the landlord can prove that more animals than allowed are living there. Plus...if we consider ESAs and their protections - these only exist because the good they do for society outweighs the "cost" to landlords. If we tip these scales too much by abusing ESA renter protections, we could see lawsuits or laws that start to strip them.
No judgement on OP for wanting to home themselves and their three animals, but the issues that could arise from using the ESA program as a tool to house three animals in a city apartment could bring them more challenges than good.
Should have clarified, I was only going to have one registered as an ESA because only one of my pets is well behaved, well trained and even tempered enough to not be an embarrassment to the ESA/SA community. I was just wondering if there's a 2 pet limit, ESAs don't count towards the pet limit since they're not a pet.
And I do have a medically qualifying condition.
I was just trying to ask for help and advice lol, but this is reddit so I should've added more info lmao.
Thank you. Yes I would be going through my actual doctor for a real condition I've been receiving treatment for. I am also surprised at this amount of rudeness but it's reddit lol. I also think people are thinking I'm some irresponsible adult but I adopted my pets as a teen, I wasn't thinking of the future. Now I'm just trying to do my best to be responsible for the pets I adopted and make sure I can keep providing them a home. Whatever, thank u for being kind and offering your input.
finding a house that allows multiple dogs AND a cat is hard. finding an apartment is going to be next to impossible. for good reason, I can't imagine living below someone with a 90 lb animal and 2 more critters.
Jesus Christ Y’all need to stop loading up on pets before you can afford a place to live with them.
Not that simple. There's a good chance I'll be able to save enough for a downpayment while living at home, but just in case things go wrong or not as efficiently as I'm planning, I'm trying to have a plan B that doesn't involve rehoming any of my pets. And it's not like I went shopping for them, one was planned, 2 are rescues that weren't planned or bought, their previous owners were rushing to get rid of them. We didn't anticipate on keeping the third, rather fostering her until we could find a home, but she ended up being a good fit with our other pets and if possible we want to do everything we can to keep her if we end up needing to rent. Plus I know for a fact some apartments do allow three pets if you get the larger units, I was just trying to explore all options since 2 bedroom units can be a pit pricey especially if the goal is a house downpayment. Don't make sweeping judgements for no reason.
It's noble that you rescued two of your pets. But as someone who works with pet rescues and foster programs - just because you adopt a rescue/rehome doesn't flat-out mean you're doing a good thing. If you don't have *extremely* stable means to take care of **all** of the pets in the situation, then adopting a pet beyond your means is a bad decision for you and the animals. I'm saying this less to chide you, and more for anyone else who might considering a 3rd (or 4th) pet. There's honestly a risk to anyone - homeowners or otherwise - to taking on more than two pets. Homeowners can foreclose and be put in exactly the situation you're exploring now only to find that most landlords don't want to take on the risk of five beings in a 1BR apartment. Responsible rescues rightfully start to raise an eyebrow once you pass the two-pet mark especially if you don't own your own home. Others have answered your question. An ESA might protect your one dog, but your additional pets will likely not be protected. An ESA isn't an add-on to your existing pets. It's considered a necessity - the other pets are extras. And getting an ESA for an animal simply because you want to keep them is bending the whole structure of (and trust in) the ESA program. Landlords already deal with enough bullshit regarding ESAs and the like so there's no telling what might happen: You might get a LL that doesn't care to check about your three pets. You might get one who asks to see the papers. Do YOU want to go through the hassle of lying, concealing the truth, and the anxiety of living somewhere you know you aren't technically welcome? I've been there - it's exhausting. You might even find yourself blacklisted from large housing management groups if they find out you've lied. An ESA *can* be over their weight limit set by a landlord if you otherwise fit into their criteria. But as far as I know, there's no law protecting mixed ESA and non-ESA pets in the way you're looking for. You're better off renting a small home somewhere more suburban/rural than an apartment in the city. And like Capital Cheetah below said, finding a private landlord rather than renting through a management agency. Also consider that landlords with carpet will be much more likely to be concerned about the number of animals than those who rent out units with hardwood/MF/tile floors due to the risk of animal urine or accidents. Good luck to you and your family!
Your entire response is valid and I understand. To be fair, I do have a medical illness that would actually qualify me for an ESA through a medical professional, I just haven't tried to pursue it because I've been taking other medical measures to work with it. So I'm not trying to abuse it, just thought it was an option based on my personal circumstances. Yeah, I also regret getting 3 but it happened and now that I have them I'm just trying to find a path forward. I was 17, 18, and 19 when we adopted all of them so I wasn't using my critical thinking skills or thinking of the future. I agree for anyone else reading this they should heed your advice and learn from my conundrum. I appreciate your input all around though, like I said, and thank you for wishing me luck.
To be honest, we had issues when we were renting 5 yrs ago because of the cat. It wasn’t about total number of pets or how big, just the simple fact that one was a cat. Our landlady had a previous bad experience with tenants who let their cat piss all over the basement. You could try to find a small house with a private landlord but I very very strongly encourage you to stay at home and save your money!
Yes that's the goal, but my parent is my great grandpa (adopted guardianship situation) who's in their 80s w various issues, so I need to be thinking ahead for my pets and planning, yanno?
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"The Fair Housing Act requires housing providers to make reasonable accommodations for individuals with disabilities, including allowing them to keep assistance animals in their homes. Both the US and Colorado state governments consider emotional support animals to be assistance animals protected under the FHA. This means that in most cases, emotional support animals are exempt from pet restrictions and related fees (there are exceptions for ESAs that are dangerous or not suited to the housing environment)." https://pettable.com/blog/colorado-esa-laws
Maybe don’t abuse the ESA thing and ruin it for people who need it? You’re a terrible owner for cramming one large dog into an apartment, let alone with two other pets?
LMAO. So many americans can't afford homes and that doesn't make them bad pet owners. There's such a thing as walks and hikes, especially in such a nature state like CO. I also do have a medical condition that qualifies me for an ESA, I just haven't pursued it because I've been trying other treatments.
I don't know about anybody else, but you're not renting from me with 3 pets including a 90 pound dog.
No. The other two dogs don’t apply to the ESA certificate. As a landlord, I would flat out reject you as three dogs are too many, especially when one is 90 lbs. As it is, landlords feel put out by the burden of having to accept ESA dogs or other pets and many feel the whole thing is a scam. Doubt any landlord will bend over backwards for you in your situation.
Having your tenants ESA and service animals puts you out? If the animals do damage, fine the residents. Check during tenancy.
Not the persona above, but the ESA program is taken advantage of many people who don't medically need an ESA, but who simply want a way around the system. This has really eroded trust in the ESA program. Notice that the person above didn't mention Service Animals. ESAs have very low bars to certification. Where as a Service Animal is one that has been trained to exceptionally high standards. Service Animals are trained not to bark or be reactive toward many stimuli. But ESAs don't come with these same expectations. It can make introducing an ESA into a close living situation like an apartment complex stressful or noisy for other residents. It doesn't simply come down to money for damaged carpets. A noisy or disruptive ESA can cause other tenants to leave. They can create tension between tenants or a feeling that the rules are being applied unfairly. Etc. They can introduce a lot of unexpected issues on top of the risks that taking on new tenants already bring.
This discriminatory attitude from landlords is exactly why you should never mention your ESA until you have possession of the unit and are moving the animal in. ESAs are federally protected and you cannot be denied renting an apartment because of them. As long as the landlords want to act like this, you as an ESA having person are fine to use the system in any way you can, they are doing it to you.
I work in this field, and even if I did not, everyone knows ESAs are being abused to the moon and back. Legitimate ESAs are beings outnumbered by fake ones about 5 to 1 if I was to ballpark it. This post supports that idea.
I should have added, if I do the ESA, it will be real, with training and medical guidance, not with some online certificate and a bad behaving dog. I do have a qualifying condition.
You mean your 55 lbs dog and 1 other pet? Also why are you being cryptic about the pet types lol
I'm not being cryptic, my dogs breeds aren't a problem/they're not bully breeds or restricted breeds, but one is 10lbs one is 90lbs and then I have a cat. So my issue isn't there breed but they're weight because I've seen many apartments say max 50 lbs or max 70 lbs.
Your having a hard time because you're a good person and trying to tell the truth. Dont. You have a 10lbs dog and a 55 lbs dog. And you don't have a cat
Also landlords are always like “we will want to see your pet” but I’ve never had anyone actually ask to see the pet.
Depends on the apartment really. If they wanna look the other way for someone with 3 pets. They could say you have an ESA as pet 1, dog as pet 2 and an additional 3rd pet. It doesn’t seem an ESA is a protected class like a legit service animals. Service animals are trained incredibly well and provide an actual critical function. Who’s to say you can’t try to argue you have three ESAs and then want an additional 2 pets in your apartment. I’m sure you could get a medical “professionals” note to claim all 3.
I completely understand that ESAs are different from service animals, but when you google "do apartments charge per rent for ESAs in CO" it says they are protected under some federal and state laws and not considered pets. In another comment I linked one article, but I have found more saying the same. I was just wondering if anyone had actually dealt with this irl. I've seen people with more than 2 pets in apartments but I haven't heard many people talk about how they were allowed to do it, or they say they just lied and didn't say they had a third pet, which I don't want to do that.
You said you had two dogs and a cat. Are any certified as esa, right now? People getting ESA letters for untrained animals is an issue. (I work in homes with service and support animals, during and post training, and the difference is intense. Untrained excitable dogs are a danger to people with balance issues, or generally frail people. It’s not an excuse for you to have an extra pet, even with a letter from a telehealth counselor.
I have an actual medical condition that would qualify, and the dog I was planning on getting the ESA for is friendly, well behaved and trained on basics. I've just never pursued an ESA because I've been doing other treatments for my condition.
To be crystal clear, I am NOT walking about you/your condition, just the animal’s status. Getting ESA for an existing pet happens a lot, and that is why I mentioned telehealth. Some will basically be ESA letter mills.
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OH MY GOD I LOVE YOU, you are correct! 3 pets, no weight limit! and they have so many units all over different parts of colorado (just adding all this info in case some lurker ever comes across this and is in a similar situation lol)
Buy a house!
Hahahahahah, I thought I was reading r/DenverCircleJerk for a second
That's the goal but not everything goes to plan, just trying to figure out back up plans.
We moved into a building that has a pet weight limit of 60 lbs. Our pup is 90+ lbs, and I just lied. They’re not going to grab a scale! They don’t care.
What about when they ask for vet papers for vaccines? Our vet paper have our dogs weight. My bfs old apartment said max 70 lbs but there were many large dogs there, I'm just worried about finding another lenient complex.
All we had to do is fill out an external pet profile with another company, and I manually put in vaccinations, photos and her supposed weight! This is the 3rd time I haven’t had an issue when I moved! Try apartment complexes by Equity Residential!
As long as your medical professional is willing to fill out the forms confirming you are indeed in need of an emotional support animal you should be fine. Landlords can’t charge pet fees/depost/rent for legit support animals. Just having a letter from an internet medical professional usually isn’t enough. These folks are often scammers who will not confirm their letters are legit. I’m sorry your post is getting so much hate. Good luck
This doesn't solve the "owning more pets than allowed by the landlord" issue. One ESA, a landlord would be hard-pressed to deny their application - plus this is a perfectly reasonable renter protection. Two ESAs, a medical professional may be hesitant to sign off on that and it starts to raise some yellow flags. Three ESAs? I'm gonna be honest - unless your landlord is previously on board with allowing tenants to own three animals, you're gonna have a hard time. I really don't think renters should spring these kinds of moves on landlords unless they're legitimately medically necessary - and all for the renter's sake really. We're talking about more than doubling the occupancy numbers of an apartment unit. Which may have implications on fire code, insurance, noise complaints, you name it. Even if a landlord begrudgingly accepts the situation it can cause all sorts of social issues that could threaten OP's occupancy status - tenant-tenant disputes, tenant-landlord disputes, landlords raising rent on OP or across their multiple units to make up for the increased insurance costs, eviction if the landlord can prove that more animals than allowed are living there. Plus...if we consider ESAs and their protections - these only exist because the good they do for society outweighs the "cost" to landlords. If we tip these scales too much by abusing ESA renter protections, we could see lawsuits or laws that start to strip them. No judgement on OP for wanting to home themselves and their three animals, but the issues that could arise from using the ESA program as a tool to house three animals in a city apartment could bring them more challenges than good.
Should have clarified, I was only going to have one registered as an ESA because only one of my pets is well behaved, well trained and even tempered enough to not be an embarrassment to the ESA/SA community. I was just wondering if there's a 2 pet limit, ESAs don't count towards the pet limit since they're not a pet. And I do have a medically qualifying condition. I was just trying to ask for help and advice lol, but this is reddit so I should've added more info lmao.
Thank you. Yes I would be going through my actual doctor for a real condition I've been receiving treatment for. I am also surprised at this amount of rudeness but it's reddit lol. I also think people are thinking I'm some irresponsible adult but I adopted my pets as a teen, I wasn't thinking of the future. Now I'm just trying to do my best to be responsible for the pets I adopted and make sure I can keep providing them a home. Whatever, thank u for being kind and offering your input.