RATS FOUND A NEW HOME! :)

You might want to look at your rent contract and see if your landlord has a specific clause about having “pets” or more specificaly “rodents”. If there isn’t one then she can’t do a damn thing about you having them, especialy if they’re not doing any damage (i.e. stink causing other neighbors to complain, getting out and chewing holes in the walls/electrical cords…from what you said, the only person that has a problem is the landlord). You might also want to look into NJ landlord and rent contract laws. If it’s not in the contract that you can’t have them and she is harassing you or doing things to affect your living conditions because of it, I’m pretty sure she can’t legaly do that. It’s a little thing called the First Ammendment….While talking legal action is the more confrontational approach, I personaly am not willing to give up my rights unless I knowingly sign them away (military), and no one has the right to take them away simply for the fact that “they don’t like it”.

Oh, I hope that’s the case. I mean, I’m sure you wouldn’t have considered the place or moved in with your ratties, if the landlord had said “no pets” right from the beginning, right? 😕 I’ve rented and most places are very careful to go over that area of the lease contract with their future tenants.

I suppose too, you can keep in mind that most landlords only deal/are exposed to rats in BAD ways. As in when “vermin” rats are on their property, causing damage, and must be exterminated. Maybe she had to deal with a nasty rat problem in the past and just plain doesn’t like them. Maybe you can arrange to show her your pets and the cage they’re kept in, and have her see they’re different (and cuter imo) from the wild rats she’s probably thinking about.

That’s more of an intellectual approach though, trying to understand her closemindedness and work with her. I also highly approve of scouring that rent contract for a pets clause!

Im not sure thats entirely correct guys… rodents are not considered pets so the land lord would not have to put it in the contract saying you cant have them. Check your rental agreement. It will usually specify what you CAN have (>20lb dog, 1 cat, etc) as opposed to what you CANT. (The list would be too long otherwise.) So if the rental contract says you can have a dog or a cat (or fish) and you have rats, then you are breaking the contract. 🙁 I Hope you find a nice place for them. You can also place them on petfinder.com or CL. Thats all I can think of. Good luck. 🙂

Oh….hmmmm…now that could pose an issue…..man I don’t really know. Is it like the house from Coraline? Where it’s a big house that has been sectioned off and retrofitted with seperate kitchens and stuff like that? Or is it one building that was actualy built to be 4 separate “appartments”? If it’s the former I think it would fall under private property that is rented out (we have a friend down in Escondido that has converted part of her garage into an appartment and put in a mini kitchen with a fridge, microwave, hot plate etc. and since she owns the property as a private residence it falls under different rules than an appartment building.). If it was actualy built and intended to be rented as seperate appartments then I think by law there has to be a rental contract.

I’m posting some interesting sites that may be of some use:

http://www.ilrg.com/forms/lease-res/us/nj (The shaded paragraph regarding the NJ Truth in Renting is the interesting part)
And here is the NJ Truth in Renting pamphlet: http://www.state.nj.us/dca/codes/lt/pdf/t_i_r.pdf

This is a good one, see especialy the last sentance I will look this up on a legal website for verification: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Will_verbal_agreements_hold_up_in_court_if_there_is_no_written_contract

This one is interesting for general lease agreements. Note that it talks about written agreements, but not really about oral agreements.. http://www.lsnjlaw.org/english/placeilive/irentmyhome/tenantsrights/chapterfour/

Anyway, hope this helps some!