We’re landlords, we don’t allow pets. Do we?

It’s been a given for many years that smart landlords do not allow pets. Why on earth would you….

• It may not be house trained = messy poo-ey floors
• Pets can be a bit stinky and could make your property smell
• They may scratch the floors & damage the furniture
• If not cared for they may get fleas – yuk!
• Future tenants may be allergic if the property isn’t properly cleaned
• They may terrorise the postman or other tenants
• They can be loud and disturb the neighbours

I consider myself a smart landlord.

Yet today I met ‘Dave’ the three year old long haired ginger rescue boy. Our new tenants in one of the rentals (a first floor apartment with rear door access to lots of green space) moved in last weekend and to be fair to them, they then asked whether it could be ok for them to get a cat. When questioned, it transpired that they’d already met Dave, who family couldn’t keep him as their young son had developed an allergy. Hmmmmm.

'Dave'

I said yes more or less straight away. Call me daft but it was a combination of gut instinct and past experience. Mr M & I had lived on the same development in a first floor flat a couple of years ago with my gorgeous girl Mia. We’d also had timber & tile floors with no carpet along with access to outside, so there were none of the problems bullet-pointed above. But more than that, I remembered my first flat, rented in the mid 90′s after leaving Uni. I’d gone out one night & returned to my rented home with a unexpected item – a skinny, poorly, abandoned kitten tucked inside my jacket, Mia, with me for the next 15yrs. So when the female tenant of the three newbies asked if it would be possible to have a rescue cat…. I saw me. I saw me loving my flat, my cat and my life.

I GOT PERSONAL!!!! #FAIL #FAIL #FAIL

All I have to do now is get Dave into one of these t shirts:

 

I did some surfing on the subject, consider this written by a landlord:

Dogs are welcome in this apartment. I never had a dog that smoked in bed and set fire to the building. I never had a dog who played music or the TV too loudly. I never had a dog get drunk and knock holes in the walls. So if your dog can vouch for you, you’re welcome too.”

Tongue in cheek possibly but maybe more pertinent is the fact that over 40% of the population own a pet. Not all of these people rent, it’s estimated there are 5 million tenants in the UK, but that’s still a whole heap of people to cut out of your rental loop.

Consider this:

• How many prospective tenants are you losing by disregarding pet owners completely? Decent properties available for tenants with pets are hugely in demand
• Tenants may well be more content and stay for much longer if they are happy in a home with their pet
• You can organise a higher deposit to cover any potential increase in damage from the pet in question
• You can download a PDF for tenants to agree to and sign with which both you and the tenant/s are happy with: http://www.propertyinvestmentproject.co.uk/downloads/landlordforms/pet_policy_sample.pdf
• You will be helping to put a stop to the estimated 8% of tenants who have to re-home their pets when they move
• You could even consider making properties more pet friendly by laying tiled floors, avoiding carpet, creating a dedicated space in the garden…. etc etc

Good heavens, there’s even a dedictated website. Go on, make yourself pet friendly! http://www.letswithpets.org.uk/

This is also a great source of info for tenants & landlords in or considering the whole pet situation: http://www.petfriendlyrentals.co.uk/tips.html

Making a Moregeous Mansion – the best birdhouse in the West

Once upon a time there was a bit of a sorry looking birdhouse, rescued from a house renovated by Team Moregeous but not really given any of it’s own TLC. Even so, our squirrels and birds loved it and the birdhouse was much used for several years, ignored by our resident pussy cat Mia whose jumping days were long gone. Even the goldfinches with their special niger seed holder didn’t interest Mia, who mostly concentrated on killing time, not wildlife. When we lost Mia after 15yrs last new year my heart was broken, but a small fluffy bundle of fun with a tongue like a rasp found us and demanded our care, even though I wasn’t quite ready for another cat. I didn’t realise that once she got settled in, she’d turn into the Fallowfield Fiend, rampaging through my wildlife and leaving half eaten goldfinches at the bottom of the stairs! All that, and she looks so innocent, appearances can be VERY deceptive.

Something had to be done to elevate the existing birdhouse and get all the seeds well away from ground level. I’m all for upcycling but this truly was a makeover and a half, with little remaining of the original house able and sturdy enough to be used. I tasked Mr M with creating a new birdhouse and he disappeared into the outside shed, happy as Larry with a saw and some bits of left-over timber.

I went down after a few hours in the office and was bowled over. He’d worked a miracle and a new timber house was born. But wait…. what about if we…. could we…. look I’ve got this…. and this…. can we use this…. oh go on, lets do that…. it all went a bit OTT as my imagination went into overdrive

Typical finds from the Cellar of Shame

Before we knew it we had a Moregeous Mansion on our hands and after a weekend of dabbling, painting, glueing, staining and fancifying, here’s what we’ve come up with – the birdhouse to end all birdhouses and our very first new build together (tee hee, got you lot on Facebook, didn’t I?)……

As you can see the only bits left from the old house are the four vertical posts which have been sanded down and re-used as the corner posts. A large slab tile of travertine has been fixed onto the timber base, with a high pitched roof allowing a parquet floored mezzanine level for the little birds (no pigeons allowed!). Most of the timber has been painted in vanilla white gloss, with walnut stain to the internal staircase and posts. The decking roof has been painted with Farrow & Ball London Clay and the swimming pool fashioned from an old plastic base primed with ESP and painted royal blue. We made the staircases out of some old Ikea cd racks with the stairs to the swimming pool diving board sprayed with chrome spray and the diving board made from a stainless steel ridged tile. The pool even has it’s own plug!

I bloody love it! There may well be a garden, conservatory and extension in the pipeline

London Clay Roof

Parquet mezzanine floor

Walnut internal staircase

Chrome stairs and steel diving board

Swimming pool with it's own plug & blue stone base

There better be some good looking birds in this Playboy mansion pretty soon, or Mr M will not be a happy boy!

Front elevation - cool huh!

 

 

A moggy filled week on site, full of ‘cat’astrophes in fact (groan)

Oscar not at all happy with his rock-hard, infected paws....

This week has been filled with the misadventures, nosiness and general all-round interference from various moggies on our sites and at home. In Project Tosca, so named due to the yowlingly operatic Oscar above, Team Moregeous have been fitting a new kitchen but we had a little hiccup early in the week. When I was in London, the boys laid the self-levelling compound to even up the floor, of course giving Oscar strict instructions not to walk in it, which he promptly ignored. But not just a tentative single paw, oh no, all four whilst the cementicious slop was still sopping wet. Being a bit of a loner and with his owner out of the house, he kept his paws hidden away for a couple of days until the compound was set nice & hard and had started to burn his pads – ouch!

A very reluctant but paw-lifting Oscar, who doesn’t like to leave the house, was stuffed spitting and arching into his basket early on Monday morning and we took him down to see Vet Angel Bernard, who’d looked after my Mia. Both his owner and I were relieved that only a couple of injections and some antibiotics were needed, we’d convinced each other that Oscar would need to be sedated and the hardened compound cut out – women! Bernard was asking me about Mia as I’d not seen him since before Christmas, I do wish she’d been able to go to him for her final visit. I told him about our newly adopted girl Missy and that brings me nicely to the second of our cat adventures. I left my top floor home office for five minutes, coming back to find that Missy had disappeared and the Velux was slightly more ajar than it had been. She’s only two so is somewhat more lively and adventurous than Mia was in her dotage, I’m constantly finding her in things, on things and up things, but this was a first when I stuck my head out of the window…

She was out there for ages, lolling on the sun-warmed lead guttering, climbing round the chimneys and slipping on the tiles. I gave up watching her after 15 minutes and just got on with my office work. Finally she popped her head over the frame asking to come back in, so I duly obliged, only to catch her red-pawed scrabbling out again ten minutes later!

Even at Project Tofu where we have fitted a new bathroom for a client, today’s schedule was feline-dictated. Sorry? asked Tofu, Did you need to fit a soap dish and toothbrush holder? Could you just wait your turn, there’s fresh water to be sipped, very very slowly, here.

And the minute I sat down to read an email whilst I waited for some paint to dry (yes, literally), over he shot, without the slightest regard for the fact that I still had work to do. A comfy lap? That’ll be mine then, decided the property’s *real* owner.

What am I going to do on the jobs where the client doesn’t have a cat? Actually, I don’t think that will happen, we just seem to attract cat-loving clients

Post tip: Self-levelling compound WILL burn your pet’s pads, so wash it all off thoroughly if they are naughty enough to walk through it and check paws thoroughly for the next few days.