Tenant busted during property inspection

A property manager has busted one of her tenants lying about owning a pet during a routine house inspection after they noticed the place reeked of cat urine.

Taylored Property Management director Skye Taylor shared on social media she was doing a routine inspection and was disappointed to find the apartment stunk of cat urine.

Ms Taylor questioned the tenant if they were keeping a cat at the property, to which they replied, “What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean, it smells like cat urine in here, are you keep a cat in the property?” she said.

The tenant responded, “oh my friend had a cat here.”

“Babes, I can smell it,” Ms Taylor said.

The property manager said it was extremely disappointing because the tenant was entitled to ask for permission to have a pet at the property under legislation, but keeping a pet unapproved was a reason to issue a breach notice.

“Now I am going to have a chat with the landlord and see whether they want to issue that breach notice,” she said.

“So just keep that in mind that you might not be able to smell it because you’re living with it, but I walk in and I can smell it.”

Across Australia laws regarding pets in rental properties differ in each state and territory, but generally a tenant must ask their landlord for permission before they can keep a pet at the property.

In this instance, landlords in SA must agree before a pet can be kept in a rental property, and approval is also needed from a strata for strata properties.

Ms Taylor said, the tenants knew they did the wrong thing and it was so blatantly obvious she could only assume they thought she would not notice or call them out on it.

“Hopefully we can get this one back on track but we will see if they want to do the right thing moving forward with honesty and looking after the property better,” she said.

Many people empathised with the tenant, commenting that people were scared they would be rejected for a rental if they said they had animals because it was so hard to get approved.

Another person commented people were scared to lose their pets while renting when landlords said no.

“Pets are family,” the person said.

One person said they could both sides here, but at the end of the day when you signed a lease as a tenant you agreed to follow the rules and legislation.