You are being followed: people with animals are massively denied rental housing
Tenants with pets in million-plus cities complain en masse about apartment owners' refusals to rent their homes. Against the background of rising rental prices, apartment owners have become more picky. Most often, among the reasons for refusals, there are fears that pets will smell, spoil furniture, and landlords say they are allergic to wool. As a result, the search for housing for pet owners can take many months or even years.
Where they won't settle with animals
In Russia, apartment owners in large cities are in most cases not ready to rent them out to tenants with pets, analysts told Izvestia.
The most difficult places to find rental housing for pet owners are in Samara, Tyumen, Omsk and Volgograd. At best, only one of the ten apartments presented will suit them, according to analysts at the <url> center.
Oksana Polyakova, Deputy director of the apartment rental department at Inkom-Real Estate, confirmed this trend to Izvestia, and also noted that the second most common reason for refusal to rent housing is lack of occupancy with young children. According to her, about 70% of ads contain such a restriction. For animals, its share is 80%.
— Owners often write in apartment rental ads that their offer is designed only for a married couple without children or one tenant, — the expert noted.
Olga from St. Petersburg is the owner of a husky. According to her, she had been looking for an apartment for two years, usually it didn't even come to looking at the apartment.
— As soon as I said that I was planning to live with a big dog, the owner of the apartment disappeared and stopped contacting me. For a while, I lived with my dog at a friend's country house," the girl told Izvestia.
Olga has now found an apartment, but pays the landlady a double deposit for it.
And Vlad, a resident of Moscow, lived separately from his cat for more than a year: the landlady of the apartment reported that her child was allergic to cat hair, so she was ready to settle the young man only without his pet.
"As a result, the cat lived with my friends and I visited him periodically," he said.
Another young man who came to the capital from Samara with a cat told Izvestia that he had to put the pet in an animal hotel.
— I arrived and was sure that I would easily find a place to live. I was not looking for an apartment in the center of Moscow, I did not need a good renovation. But the search dragged on. I lived with a pet for a while with a friend, but then she became allergic to a cat, and I had to look for an additional home for the animal. It was only after three months of monitoring the ads that I found an apartment with a "granny renovation", the owner of which turned out to be a cat lover and was not against my cat, he clarified.
Some people have been unable to find an apartment to live with an animal for years, Natalia, a realtor, told Izvestia.
— The chances of finding housing in a short time are higher for those who want to move in with small animals. For example, fish in an aquarium, hamsters or rabbits," the expert added.
Why do landlords refuse
Owners have become more selective about tenants, and therefore it has become especially problematic to look for an apartment with pets in early autumn 2025, Olga Pavlinova, director of the rental department of the federal company Etagi, told Izvestia. According to her, during this period, landlords try to find the most reliable tenants and rent an apartment at the maximum price.
"The easiest way for people with animals to find temporary housing is during a period of low demand in the rental market, when owners become more loyal due to competition, but there are always risks that as demand increases, the owner will try to find another tenant," the expert added.
The owners have indeed become more categorical against the background of a shortage of rental supply and an excess of potential demand, Oksana Polyakova stated.
The loyalty of landlords to pets often correlates with the level of competition in the rental housing market, <url> agreed.
— In most cities where it is high, such as Novosibirsk, Moscow and St. Petersburg, a lot of housing is rented out and apartment owners are forced to mitigate the requirements for tenants in order to find them faster. But in outsider cities, with the possible exception of Tyumen, the rental market is less competitive," said Yan Gravshin, head of the center.
The supply of rental housing per population is relatively low, so apartment owners can impose stricter requirements on applicants, he explained.
In addition, according to Olga Pavlinova, some of the apartments put up for rent were purchased with a mortgage or rented out at the same time as the sale.
— When people with animals move into such apartments, there is a risk of losing the marketable appearance of the living space. Moreover, the need for repairs will lead to downtime of the apartment and loss of income, which is used to pay off the mortgage," she stressed.
According to realtor Natalia, apartment owners are primarily afraid that the animal will damage the property.
Psychologist Natalia Naumova added that apartment owners are also afraid of conflicts with neighbors because of the noise from animals and dirt, pungent odors. She believes that the increase in cases of refusals to live in apartments with animals is associated with an increase in the level of distrust of people towards each other. According to her, there have been too many shocks in the world in recent years, which has affected people's attitudes towards each other.
And Maria Zhukova, head of the rental department at the Miel real estate agency, noted that it has become more difficult to find an option that suits tenants with animals, after all, not all of them agree to "grandma's repairs."
It is most difficult for tenants with pets to find apartments with modern renovation, and even more so in the premium segment, owners of apartments with outdated repairs are more loyal to pets, Olga Pavlinova confirmed.
Some of the owners are ready to move in tenants with pets only if they take out an insurance policy for the entire stay, pay an increased deposit and pay extra for cleaning, she said.
— When settling in with pets, owners often raise the rental rate by 10-15%, arrange for more frequent visits to tenants, especially in the first months of their stay, to monitor the condition of the housing, — the expert noted.
But in a number of megacities, homeowners are more loyal to pets, analysts said. This is, in particular, the situation in Ufa — in the capital of Bashkiria, almost every second rental advertisement allows living with pets. This indicator is also high in Moscow, St. Petersburg and Novosibirsk.
— Residents of the capital and Novosibirsk with pets have access to a third or more apartments. In St. Petersburg, almost a quarter of owners are ready to rent an apartment to such landlords, " <url> noted.
Why refusals due to allergies are justified
If landlords, refusing tenants with animals, refer to allergies, then this is a serious and real reason for such a decision, the experts surveyed noted. Cleaning cannot always eliminate all traces of an animal's presence in the room. As a result, both owners with allergies who decide to live in their apartment and subsequent tenants with such a diagnosis may have health problems.
An allergy to an animal can appear both on first acquaintance and after several years of regular contact with a potential allergen, said Yulia Selikhova, an allergist and immunologist at Invitro.
— With a clinically manifested respiratory tract allergy, its spontaneous disappearance is extremely unlikely. In most cases, allergies, on the contrary, progress, and additional health risks appear," she added.
Alexandra Fileva, a doctor at the Hemotest laboratory, agreed with her.
"Constant exposure to allergens leads to chronic inflammation of the respiratory tract and can trigger asthma, even if it has never happened before," she stressed. — Incessant rhinitis, conjunctivitis, and itching of the skin lead to exhaustion of the body, cause increased nervousness, fatigue, and disrupt sleep. Concentration decreases, memory deteriorates. All this has a negative impact on work and studies.
Also, according to the expert, due to the constant fight against allergens, the immune system is overloaded, a weakened body becomes more susceptible to colds, flu and other infections. Chronic inflammation caused by allergies can contribute to the development of autoimmune diseases: when the immune system malfunctions, it mistakenly begins to attack the body's own organs and tissues.
The most dangerous thing about allergies is their unpredictability. A slight sneeze can develop into an attack of suffocation and even anaphylactic shock, requiring emergency medical attention, the doctor emphasized.
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