Having my household of both people and pets, apartment hunting can seem fruitless.

Between the usual stresses of having two illegal pets (limit 2 free range pets per house in most cases) and the guinea pigs and the birds, searching for a new place to live has been hit or miss.

I’m not used to making it clear to the apartments that I have both guinea pigs and birds. I shy away from speaking about it. When I was trying to move out of this relationship during a stressful time a few years ago, I only intended to take the guinea pigs. They were my babies and have been since 2006. The very first rental community I spoke to had turned me down, starting that guinea pigs are rodents and therefore “nuisance animals”.

The first apartment we looked at went well. I’d lived there before with my very first guinea pigs. The second apartment we looked at said strictly in their lease No Rodents. The third place we looked at said yes to the guinea pigs, but strictly stated limit 1 cat or dog. I have four. I can swing a pair but I am not pretending I don’t have basically the entire group.
The fourth apartment community said no guinea pigs as they are considered exotic.
All of the communities would rent to me being a bird owner. Are birds more exotic than guinea pigs? My veterinarian treats them both as a specialty. Birds also can raise problems by their volume alone.

Poor, poor guinea pigs.

Dismal made a call to the community across the street and asked them specifically about the guinea pigs. As long as they are caged, they would even allow you to have venomous snakes. They didn’t really care.  So, we’re going to meet with them soon and discuss price points, application fees and deposits.

Two feasible options out of five.

I’m still open to renting a house if we can find one in our price range. The swing of it is that they require first, last months plus deposits which amount to $2-3000.