In hotel, can't find house allowing pets ~ plz help!

Hi All!  I am in a hotel right now trying to rent a house for the family in West London.  We have two cats and the letting agents seem to be universal in not accepting pets.     I can't seem to locate any private landlords to strike deals with as the renting sites are all filled with agents.  Does anyone have any advice on getting a place that allows pets?  I am only here for a week and want to go home with a signed lease.  I know I can do it without pets but I really want to do it with.  Thanks for your help.

Hey pushkin, nice to see you again, it's been a while! 

Have you tried gumtree.com? 

Have you asked the letting agents whether the no pets rule is negotiable?  I know several people who have rented houses where the letting agents said no pets, but the landlords have agreed to allow pets with the payment of an additional deposit.

First of all, look for a place with wood or laminate flooring, at least on the ground floor.  People without pets can be incredibly biased against cats + carpets, even if your cats, like mine, are housetrained and wouldn't dare pee on or tear up a carpet.  I've found that this bias isn't applied to dogs nearly so much as cats, which makes little or no sense, and as a cat person makes me go then .

Secondly, once you've found a likely place, make an appointment to see the place and have a walkthrough and THEN bring up the cats.  Don't tell the leasing agents at the beginning, as inevitably they'll automatically say no.  All three places we've lived in the UK have been advertised as "no pets" - by waiting until after we've seen the property (and therefore decided whether or not we want to fight for it) to mention the cats, we've essentially charmed the leasing agents into contacting the landlords to get "special" permission for the cats.  (Having a good reference from a previous landlord can only help in this case!) Also, offer to pay a pet deposit!  We've offered in all three places, and have only had to pay once.  In this economy, a lot of landlords would rather run the risk of needing to replace some carpets, etc. (especially when they can charge the cost against your bond or pet deposit) than have a rental property standing vacant for any period of time.

Obviously, I don't live in London, so I don't know how quickly properties go in the area in which you are looking, but up here there are far more vacancies than available tenants, so we have a bit more bargaining power.  Good luck with your search!!

Thanks a bunch everyone.  I am so weary, driving neighborhoods all morning.  I did a fairly good job staying in the correct lane.  I will definitely offer the pet deposit.  I did that in the US at my current "no pets" house to win them over.

Good luck finding a place. I hope it all works out for you. I wasn't able to bring my pets, so my dog and cat are living with my parents, and I have real bouts of guilt and tears over it from time to time.

First of all, look for a place with wood or laminate flooring, at least on the ground floor.  People without pets can be incredibly biased against cats + carpets, even if your cats, like mine, are housetrained and wouldn't dare pee on or tear up a carpet.  I've found that this bias isn't applied to dogs nearly so much as cats, which makes little or no sense, and as a cat person makes me go then .

Secondly, once you've found a likely place, make an appointment to see the place and have a walkthrough and THEN bring up the cats.  Don't tell the leasing agents at the beginning, as inevitably they'll automatically say no.  All three places we've lived in the UK have been advertised as "no pets" - by waiting until after we've seen the property (and therefore decided whether or not we want to fight for it) to mention the cats, we've essentially charmed the leasing agents into contacting the landlords to get "special" permission for the cats.  (Having a good reference from a previous landlord can only help in this case!) Also, offer to pay a pet deposit!  We've offered in all three places, and have only had to pay once.  In this economy, a lot of landlords would rather run the risk of needing to replace some carpets, etc. (especially when they can charge the cost against your bond or pet deposit) than have a rental property standing vacant for any period of time.

Obviously, I don't live in London, so I don't know how quickly properties go in the area in which you are looking, but up here there are far more vacancies than available tenants, so we have a bit more bargaining power.  Good luck with your search!!

Yes!  All of this!  We've got 2 cats in central London.  We have now rented 2 places that were okay with our cats.  The first time, we offered an extra 2 weeks deposit (so 8 instead of 6 weeks) and a "pet reference" from our last US landlord and that was that.  Our new place, that we're moving into soon, didn't require anything additional at all.   

In both cases, we rented places with 100% hardwood flooring, for peace of mind as well as ease of cleanup (we've got a barfer). 

In a lot of cases, the estate agents are just being lazy and don't want to have to do a bit of extra work calling the individual landlords to see if pets are okay.  And I'm not sure if your cats are indoor-only (nevermind the cultural differences for now) but we really emphasized that (and it's 100% true) to make it clear that our cats wouldn't disturb anyone else in the building/area.

I've only run into one place that was adamantly NO PETS and it wasn't the landlord at all, it was the building, which had some medical offices on lower floors and didn't want any pets at all, lest it put off their higher-rent paying commercial tenants.

Also, for searching purposes, we condensed our two cats into one.     Somehow it seems less ominous to estate agents.  We fully disclosed both in the end.

Good luck!

(we've got a barfer). 

LOL - us too!  Though ours is crazily fastidious - I swear he refrains from puking on the carpeted stairs or landing because he knows it's hard to clean up!

We had our 2 cats in Wimbledon and while it wasn't super easy to find a place we didn't have huge problems. We worked with Kinleigh whatever, I can't remember the name of the agent! We also went the unfurnished route which may have helped.

We also went the unfurnished route which may have helped.

We rented a sparsely furnished place.  To be honest, the existing furniture was awful, but we liked the location and apartment itself, so we hit up Ikea for furniture covers and supplemental pieces.  Our new place is similarly sparsely furnished. 

Funny aside:  when the estate agents came to take pics of our current place to advertise, my fat cat was sprawled on the coffee table in his usual manner and ended up in the pictures advertising the apartment.  So I guess that would be one sure way to tell if a place allows pets.   

I think unfurnished is going to be a must for pet owners (or sparsely furnished). We used Dexters in Kingston. They dealt with pets on a per property basis. I had not heard of entire letting agents being no-pets! That's crap.

We also paid an extra 2 weeks pet deposit. You definitely have to offer that I think. Its a psychological thing that will work in your favor.

Hi UK-Yankee Letting Advisory Team!

Here is the final report.  Signed a lease today.  I went with the letting agent and looked at four properties.  At one, the landlord was there.  He apologized for the condition of the carpet and promised to have it replaced by the time I moved in.

I said wait.  Because I have a deal for you. Why don't you take a load off and let the carpet be plus I'll give you extra deposit if you'll accept my wonderful cats.

He went for it so we are in!  Yay.  The letting agent said he had never done a pet property...but then again...he had never rented to an American either.  A day of firsts for him. 

congrats pushkin! Way to work it

Congrats! Well done-- glad it worked out for you!

Hooray!!   So glad things worked out for you!