Pets or a home: the cruel choice

matter what is done to locate the key. For those people, renting is the only viable option.

For some, especially those living in our biggest cities, renting will be for life.

That is why it makes sense to ensure that tenants who are signing up for increasingly longer spells have some security around homes that are warm and dry.

However, that is also why landlords need to take another look at their expectations of tenants, who often pay a hefty premium despite their lowest rung on the property ladder.

Anyone who has tried to rent a property while in possession of a pet will understand the pain of Porirua pensioner Robyn Nielsen. She, like many others, no doubt believes that owning a pet is as basic a human right as reasonable standards governing a home’s fitness.

Robyn faces the prospect of having to get rid of her cat because her landlord, the Wellington City Council, has a no-pets policy at her block of flats.

The council has offered to help ‘re-home’ her pet, but let’s be clear, there is the possibility this could end badly for the moggy.

For those seeking a rental, hundreds of available options are instantly whittled down to a mere handful at the swipe of the ‘‘Pets Ok’’ filter.

Of the few remaining, some offer the opportunity to ‘negotiate’.

Even when the prospective landlord is demanding a princely sum for their property.

Already kicked down that ladder for a myriad reasons, those unlucky enough to have a pet can find that bottom rung even further from their grasp.

Many are like Robyn, alone and dependent on a pet for company.

For others they are as much family as the small children who are likely to cause more damage than their furry counterparts.

Already vulnerable because of their lack of options for finding a home, some will no doubt have to consider a heartbreaking final solution to their pet problem.

This would not be much of an issue if the access to home ownership was easier and an option for all. But it’s not.

That ship has sailed and is steaming to the horizon, probably never to be seen again.

That means many will spend most, if not all, of their lives in a rental property.

If that’s the case, landlords, public and private, need to soften their stance and accept that pets are an important part of the Kiwi lifestyle. And for some, people like Robyn, they are family. Not for rent, for life.