Shortly after moving into our new apartment we began to receive complaints about our dogs. They’re not really barkers and our unit is pretty isolated so we were a bit surprised. It turns out that two people in our building are afraid of catching some canine-borne diseases by riding the same elevator we use to take the dogs in and out. Being the new, friendly neighbors that we are, we tried to assuage their concerns by providing the head of our building’s owners group (who brought the complaints to our attention, via our landlord) with a letter describing the sanitary nature of our pets and offered to provide documentation (vaccination and health history) from our vet if they requested it.
We then learned that our building had an ‘unofficial’ no pets policy and that other families had supposedly given up pets to move in. This policy now appears to be ‘official’ since this week a list of rules was posted in the elevator.
We chose this apartment with our dogs in mind and our landlord was aware of our pets and actually encouraged us to rent it because of its size and proximity to parks. In fact, one of the first questions I asked before even viewing the apartment was if dogs were ok. She likes dogs and had no problem with them being in her apartment so we signed a 2-year lease. Obviously, the lease does not prohibit pets.
In the interest of not rocking the boat and community harmony our landlord asked about the possibility of us getting rid of the dogs. That’s not an option. Our landlord was able to convince the homeowners to take a wait-and-see approach: they will discuss it in a few months at the group’s end-of-year meeting.
We still have 22 months left in our rental contract. Our landlord is pretty supportive and we get along just fine, but she doesn’t like being the go-between in this situation. She’d just like the problem to go away. She does not live in our building and has never lived in the unit we are renting so I don’t think she cares too much personally - it’s just a hassle for her.
So my question is: Can we be legally forced to get rid of dogs or be evicted?
Thanks for any advice!