Students Find Ways Around Pet Ownership Restrictions
Though University, Landlords Ban Pets, Fraternities and Sororities Welcome Animals
By ALEX KOGAN
Contributing Writer
Tuesday, September 20, 2005
© 2005 The Daily Californian
(The University of California, Berkeley)
For students overloaded with big books and bigger expectations, sometimes having a pet to love is the best remedy to a stressful lifestyle.
However, for years, pet lovers who came to Berkeley have found themselves turned away from dormitories and apartment complexes that prohibited pet ownership. Some had to leave their pets at home while others were forced to abandon their first-choice living spaces to move into pet-friendly housing.
University residential housing and University Students' Cooperative Association housing restrict ownership of all warm-blooded pets, allowing only attendant animals and fish. It is a lenient attitude when compared to the policies of many apartment complexes in the city, many students say.
Like most landlords, Dan Bristol, manager of an apartment complex on Channing Way, does not allow his tenants to own pets.
"Dogs have the potential to get messy-more destructive inside the unit but also barking," Bristol says.
Many residential complexes ban pets to avoid the pets' noise, scratching and shedding, and to prevent them from becoming a nuisance to other tenants.
"I'm allergic to cats, and it'd be unfortunate if there was a cat in the dorm," says freshman Juliana Mandell, who lives in Unit 3.
When prohibited pets do not disturb other tenants, however, Bristol says he occasionally uses a "don't ask, don't tell" policy toward the animals, leading some determined residents to conceal their well-trained pets in their rooms.
Surreptitious pet sneaking is a rare occurrence at Greek houses, especially fraternities, which not only allow pets but occasionally have house mascots.
At Tau Kappa Epsilon, the brothers helped break in their new house last fall by taking in a Saint Bernard puppy. Now, Brutus Epsilonus V is a low-maintenance Fraternity Row icon: Each brother only needs to commit 10 minutes a month to Brutus' care.
"He's pretty well trained. ... He demolishes his toys, but he is pretty respectful of everything else," says junior Robert Campion, who lives in the house.
At Sigma Chi, seven-week-old American bulldog Eve, whose owner, Josh Eisenhut, is a member of the house, basks in the affection of the brothers.
"She's very mellow," Eisenhut says.
Berkeley sororities allow pets on a house-by-house basis, says Lauren Karasek, vice president of public relations of the College Panhellenic Council, the sororities' umbrella organization.
However, the Berkeley pet menagerie consists of more than just the conventional dog and cat.
"I knew a girl who had a bunny at her place," says recent UC Berkeley graduate Thatsanaphone Bounyarith. "The landlord didn't allow pets, but bunnies don't make noises."
With many tenants sneaking pets past relatively lenient landlords, some students say continuing the ban against animals in residences is unfair to students.
"The people who would own a cat, for instance, would probably have the ability to take care of it in such a way as to not cause a problem," says freshman Diane Ko.
Ko says a policy requiring residents to pay for the damages created by their pets would be most practical for landlords, the University, and especially new tenants who come to Berkeley still emotionally attached to their pets.
"A pet can sometimes be more reliable or more comforting than any other person," Ko says.
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