Letter to Landlords

Dear Landlords,

You don't know me, but you should. I am a model tenant. I am an extremely clean person; if I see a bug in my house, as you can read in other posts, I squash them and exterminate extras with spray or poison. I called my landlady the first time I saw a roach in my basement. The exterminator told me it was a wood roach and they were commonly found indoors after it gets cold - they weren't the same as the roach roach that will be around millions of years after we all die from war. I didn't buy it, and the guy came every four months to spray for creepy-crawlies.

I pay on time, if not early. Ask my former landlady; ask my storage unit who gets money from me every month. Ask the phone company, the cable company, my insurance company: I PAY MY BILLS.

But the one thing that disqualifies me from renting from you, and which no doubt gives you headaches because you can't find honest, drug-free people like me very often, is the fact that you say I can't have pets. Why is this a disqualification? I'm not about to leave my furballs to other rental parents for the rest of my life. And what I don't understand is that my cats are cleaner than any toddler on any given day: they do not eat a lollipop and then press their sticky little fingers to the wall; they do not write on the walls; they don't pee on the floors; they are completely house-trained and have been for the past 12 years that I've had the eldest. The one thing they do is shed, but so do people, and you know what? We have these appliances called vacuum cleaners, and they pick up cat hair pretty well.

And for those of you who are "pet-friendly", then tell me you want a $200 non-refundable deposit for "flea and odor extermination" and then a $20, $30, or $50 "pet rent" each month I occupy your home, I know you really aren't pet-friendly. You just make it seem like you are so when I'm in a pinch, I will pay your extortionist prices to keep my babies near me. Well, you can kiss my grits.

Now, I know there are nice landlords out there, but I'm having a hard time finding you in Bloomington, Indiana. So if you are looking for an outstanding, responsible couple to occupy your home, here we are. To the rest of the blogging community, if you know someone who has a house or apartment for rent in Bloomington that allows pets, especially cats, please let me know.