JimmyT said:
I hear your pain, Sloan, but all of the problems you mention can be dealt with under by-laws that have nothing to with permission for pets specifically.
However, the building management is absolutely ruthless when it comes to owners whose dogs are noisy or messy and who won't so anything to fix it. Barking dogs (and their antisocial owners) are gone quicksmart.
In a perfect world I would agree with you.
It is a rare occurance indeed in my experience to come across a building or complex so well managed it can stay on top of owners regarding pets. Most buildings can not even control the behaviour of their residents. Most buildings seem to muddle by year upon year barely staying on top of their responsibilities. I am glad in your building you have gotten it to work but it is not the common experience of most complexes that allow pets.
I have usually found that the whole dog thing in most complexes begins 2 ways. With a request from someone on the EC to keep a dog or a family moves in with one without permission and permission is granted because no one wants to be the hard one to say no and it all snowballs from there.
I lived in one building many years ago where they had very specific by laws in place about pets and it had what you could call a zero nuisance policy to placate the many objectors. It worked fine at first but as time passed and more and more pets came to live in this complex of 80 or so apartments it came to resemble a zoo more than a building for humans and it all started with just one little white dog and its owner who was good friends with the owner of the strata management firm.
Lets say you have allow pets in a complex and one owner complains of the noise as she shares a common wall or corridor with a dog. The onus will fall on that person to prove that their reasonable enjoyment of their lot is affected and their quality of life has been affected. Much expense and inconvenience. It will not fall on the pet owner to prove otherwise. Now that occupant has all the noise and the trouble and inconvenience of the tribunal and EC to go through to just get back to the point they were at prior to the pet moving in next door. Fair?
I think your building is the rare example of a strata that has made it work. For your one there will 99 buildings that are hell on earth because of pets.
I have seen people sell their apartments because they could not live with the constant barking.