realtors stop showing my house to people that say no house with cats

[Jeannie in NJ]

I know I should be happy with each showing but whenever another realtor calls our realtor to set up a showing, our reatlor tells them that we have cats. Do the other realtors just not tell the people assuming that it really does not matter and that they don't really mean " Don't show us any house with cats." Several times, the people will come in our house see we have cats and have to leave because of allergies or just because they REALLY are not interested in seeing any houses that have cats living there. That is their right not to be interested in any house with cats, so why don't the realtors listen to them. This happened twice this week. It is a waste of everyone's time.

[justamouse]

Wow. People ask for a house with no cats?

 

I know all about cat allergies, but I wouldn't even imagine about asking because the protien in the saliva stays around for over 25 years, so unless they're looking at new...

:grouphug:

[TranquilMind]

Wow. People ask for a house with no cats?

 

 

 

Yes, they do. I won't even look at one because I can't tolerate it. Why can't people have aquariums?

[clarkacademy]

Yes, they do. I won't even look at one because I can't tolerate it. Why can't people have aquariums?

 

Because those things are nasty and aggravating? I don't see how anyone can know if there had ever been cats in a house though.

[Wheres Toto]

I can walk into a house and know if there are cats there. If the carpeting is old enough and not be thoroughly cleaned I have been able to tell if a cat had lived in the house in the past 5 years. I've never had the opportunity to see if I could tell farther back then that. My eyes start itching, swell up and I have an asthma attack.

[Night Elf]

I don't see how anyone can know if there had ever been cats in a house though.

 

Our last home actually smelled like cats because we had 4 of them. The couple that bought it were actually neighbors of ours and they put their house on the market to buy our house. She told me that when they went on vacation for several days, the house smelled awful when they got home. I felt bad because we had lived there for 7 years with cats and we were just used to the smell so we really had no idea that it was bad.

[bzymom]

As a seller, that would annoy me a great deal. Showings, especially for families with kids & pets, can be a pain.

 

As a buyer, I would be done with any agent that knowingly disregarded my instructions in this circumstance. Two of my kids are extremely allergic to cats, and I would avoid any homes with a known cat history.

 

I hope your home sells soon, for a great price!

[TranquilMind]

Because those things are nasty and aggravating? I don't see how anyone can know if there had ever been cats in a house though.

Ha. I have a house that had cats in it ELEVEN years ago before I purchased it, back when I didn't realize that cats would forever change a house. I can still tell when I enter one bathroom, even with entire repainting and replacing everything.

 

I can always tell even if the cat isn't present.

[mommaduck]

Yes, they do. I won't even look at one because I can't tolerate it. Why can't people have aquariums?

Because people like me kill fish. Cats and goats are pretty self sufficient. Feed them, water them, change the cat's litter.

[Jeannie in NJ]

clarkacademy, at first I thought you meant that cats are nasty and aggravating but then I assumed you meant that aquariums are but then maybe you did mean cats lol, I agree that cats can be very aggravating and some people think they are also nasty lol.

[Spryte]

That would be annoying. Maybe your realtor can stress this somehow, so that time and effort is not wasted.

 

I'm glad you posted this. DS has severe cat allergies, and cannot visit my mother because she used to have cats. Instant asthma, and so bad it's put him in the hospital. So we stay in a hotel to visit her.

 

But we are getting ready to move now, and I had not considered that we will have to find a new home that has not had cats! That adds another layer of complexity onto our search.

[marbel]

Not all realtors "get it." If they don't have cat issues, they may not understand. They are also hungry to make the sale, so they will show everything they can.

 

My husband has severe cat allergies but we bought a house that had had cats. We could tell when we looked at it, but it wasn't bad enough to drive us away, and the house was great otherwise. Before we moved in we had the carpets and the ductwork cleaned and it worked out fine for us. (Not that that means it would work out fine for everyone.)

 

OTOH, we looked at a house that we couldn't even walk into, the cat smell was so bad. I felt sorry for the sellers and wondered if they would ever sell the house.

 

I too hope your house sells quickly!

[Splash]

We ended up building because we couldn't find a house on property in the area that didn't have a cat in it. DD was/is severely allergic and would have been miserable which in turn would mean I would be miserable. Realtor didn't understand when dh kept telling her no that a house wouldn't work until we explained. We have barn cats but not house cats.

[In the Rain]

I wonder if the other realtors don't realize how serious their clients are about "no cats". Maybe they assume that if the house doesn't smell bad, it will be okay. As someone with severe allergies, I would be extremely annoyed if my realtor wasted my time showing me a house where cats or smokers were living. :glare: I don't blame you for being annoyed at the inconvenience of showing your house to people who aren't going to seriously buy it anyway. :glare:

[elise1mds]

Our realtor put in the 'realtor only' notes for our listing that there were cats on the premises. Saved us a lot of time and hassle. Our house doesn't smell like cat, but for anyone who is allergic, our house is still a killer. We're thankful it sold.

[Pippen]

Our last home actually smelled like cats because we had 4 of them. The couple that bought it were actually neighbors of ours and they put their house on the market to buy our house. She told me that when they went on vacation for several days, the house smelled awful when they got home. I felt bad because we had lived there for 7 years with cats and we were just used to the smell so we really had no idea that it was bad.

 

When we bought the home we're in now we were told that they'd hat a cat in the past but that it had died. I have allergies and enough time had passed that it wasn't triggering any reaction. My sense of smell is really keen but I didn't notice it while their belongings were in the home. Once the house was cleared out it was very noticable--yuck. It took several carpet cleanings, a lot of scrubbing, and probably a year of time before it wasn't noticable any longer. I would have replaced carpet and woodwork if we could have but it wasn't something we could swing then.

[clarkacademy]

clarkacademy, at first I thought you meant that cats are nasty and aggravating but then I assumed you meant that aquariums are but then maybe you did mean cats lol, I agree that cats can be very aggravating and some people think they are also nasty lol.

 

I hate aquariums! I mean I hate things living in water it drives m insane and I have seen damage done from water tanks. They are a witch to clean and those darn fish die so easy!

[SorrelZG]

Because those things are nasty and aggravating? I don't see how anyone can know if there had ever been cats in a house though.

 

 

We bought a house that had had cats and years later cat hair was still showing up. It was blowing out of air vents, it was under the laminate flooring, behind molding, and one of the bathroom sinks smelt of wet cat. We actually saw the cats when we first viewed the house but I had no idea that I'd be cleaning up after them and smelling them for years to come.:tongue_smilie:

[VeritasMama]

I have a similiar problem with smells, but it is from the previous owners dog. I have a small half bath that stinks like wet dog and urine if the door is shut for more than a few hours. I'm assuming it is where they put their dog when they were at work, poor animal. We also had the living room carpet replaced, we couldn't really afford it, but it was worth maxing out the Home Depot card, the smell was interfering with our children's learning. :tongue_smilie:

[lcelmer]

Our realtor put in the 'realtor only' notes for our listing that there were cats on the premises.

:iagree:

 

Most likely your listing realtor did not include anything about animals in the listing, so the potential buyers cannot tell if you have cats of not. The decision to see a house is based on that paper & a quick drive by.

 

A conversation between the realtors themselves has a much lower chance of getting to the buyers.

[SwallowTail]

Ugh, reading this thread makes me wish we had never gotten cats as pets. I hope to never own another pet as long as Ilive once they are gone. They are too much liability.

[unity]

Ugh, reading this thread makes me wish we had never gotten cats as pets. I hope to never own another pet as long as Ilive once they are gone. They are too much liability.

 

Seriously. I had no idea. I kind of like our cat, but my life would go on without her and now I have to worry about this, too. We'll be selling our house in a few years. I guess this thread has taught me that if she dies, I will not rush to get another cat, even if the kids bat their sweet little eyes at me!

[Mosaicmind]

Wow. People ask for a house with no cats?

 

I know all about cat allergies, but I wouldn't even imagine about asking because the protien in the saliva stays around for over 25 years, so unless they're looking at new...

:grouphug:

 

We lived in a house that had cats for 12 yrs and still you could smell them downstairs. Nothing we did got the smell out. And when we tried to sell our home almost every person said something about the cat smell downstairs. We lost two good prospective buyers because of it. I hated going downstairs. We thought we could get the smell out when we switched carpet but it was in the concrete. UGH!!I hate cat smell.

[happypamama]

A large part of being a real estate agent is reading what your clients aren't saying, and determining how much what they say actually means. Some people would say, "Oh, I MUST have X," and then they'd end up buying something that defnitely did not have X. Or they'd say, "no Y," and then they'd fall for a house that definitely had Y. Agents hear stuff like that often enough that they don't necessarily believe it. It's possible that people are saying, "no cats," and agents are hearing, "I'd rather not have to deal with animals but no big deal for the right house."

 

It's also possible that your agent did not list the cats on the listing, which would be helpful all around, so ask if the agent can do that. But yes, it's aggravating.

[Tammyla]

:grouphug: Realtors want a sale, and often plan to tire a family out looking at properties they know wont work in order to steer them to another property or they don't take the clients seriously.

 

It stinks when they waste your time.

 

I'm allergic to cats & birds and can't sleep in a home that has or had them. I go into asthma attack mode and no amount of cleaning will work for me. More than once, I was shown a home that had them out of sight. Luckily or unfortunately, I know almost immediately after going in.

 

I hope your home sells soon:).

 

I know I should be happy with each showing but whenever another realtor calls our realtor to set up a showing, our reatlor tells them that we have cats. Do the other realtors just not tell the people assuming that it really does not matter and that they don't really mean " Don't show us any house with cats." Several times, the people will come in our house see we have cats and have to leave because of allergies or just because they REALLY are not interested in seeing any houses that have cats living there. That is their right not to be interested in any house with cats, so why don't the realtors listen to them. This happened twice this week. It is a waste of everyone's time.

[TranquilMind]

I feel that way about dogs. So I understand.

 

I don't like aquariums either.

 

LOL

Me either, though I did have one for my son for 5 years. I ended up doing all of the cleaning and feeding so I got rid of it.

 

No pets here!

[justLisa]

I feel that way about dogs. So I understand.

 

I don't like aquariums either.

 

LOL

 

I am not a pet person. It makes people feel ill toward me at times I think. Why can't it be ok? I REALLY like my kids though! :D

 

We have an aquarium. It is in our foyer, 75 gallons. It was HUGE project. We have a hole that goes in to the garage for a sump, and it recycles 10 gallons of water every day, which then drains in to a rain barrel that I water with. It's pretty cool! It is a living habitat, with live plants, etc. No chemicals. It is an ongoing science lesson! I don't touch it though.

[Myeightkiddies]

I'm severely allergic to cats. Once in awhile there will be a cat that I do fine around as long as I don't pet them or immediately scrub my hands if I do. We have such a cat. However, it is rare.

 

The house that we currently own but will be selling soon had three cats living in it when we purchased it. Prior to moving in I cleaned the carpets. It never bothered me after that.

 

When looking for houses recently, I admit that some of the houses with cats bothered me a lot during the walk-throughs. I kept forgetting to buy a mask to keep in the car. The cats did not influence our decision as to whether to buy a house or not. Though, there was this one house with the most beautiful cat that I have ever seen. If they had thrown the cat into the deal, it might have been a sale. ;)

 

Edited to add: Just wanted to note that the house had a strong cat smell when we purchased it. Normally I probably wouldn't have, but at that time, there were only two houses for sale in our area that would suit my family. There wasn't much choice then. After I cleaned the carpet, the house, and painted, the smell was gone.

Edited July 13, 2012 by Myeightkiddies

[Jennay]

We've had cats in our house for 12 years and the owner before us had a cat.

I'm always asking people if they think our house smells like cat (people who will be honest with me) and they always say no.

Did all these people have problems with their cats peeing outside of the litter box?

And I just must be a total cat person, because there's no way I would want to get rid of our cats or not get another one in the future, even if it would make it harder to sell our house. I'm such a softie for cats. :tongue_smilie:

[LeslieAnneLevine]

Ugh, reading this thread makes me wish we had never gotten cats as pets. I hope to never own another pet as long as Ilive once they are gone. They are too much liability.

 

I think the people who don't want to even look at houses with cats are in the minority. Millions of people have cats as pets. I wouldn't worry about it unless you have a herd of them.

[lea1]

We've had cats in our house for 12 years and the owner before us had a cat.

I'm always asking people if they think our house smells like cat (people who will be honest with me) and they always say no.

Did all these people have problems with their cats peeing outside of the litter box?

And I just must be a total cat person, because there's no way I would want to get rid of our cats or not get another one in the future, even if it would make it harder to sell our house. I'm such a softie for cats. :tongue_smilie:

 

:iagree: Nobody even knows we have two cats unless we tell them. Are these smelly-house cats peeing all over the place or what? We have never had an issue with that. Our cats always use the litter box and the boxes are cleaned on a regular basis so they are not smelling up the house. I have sold two houses so far with no mention of cat-or-no-cat and no known problem.

[gardenmom5]

I can walk into a house and know if there are cats there. If the carpeting is old enough and not be thoroughly cleaned I have been able to tell if a cat had lived in the house in the past 5 years. I've never had the opportunity to see if I could tell farther back then that. My eyes start itching, swell up and I have an asthma attack.

I've a friend who can walk into her mother's no-cat house and tell if the neighbors with a cat have dropped off a closed box of clothes. when she was little, she wanted a cat and her mother made a deal if she could hold it for 15 minutes she could keep it. she always gave it back.

 

eta: what people with cats need to understand - it isn't always the smell. it's the dander that causes my eyes to water and my sinuses to close within minutes of entering a room with a cat.

Edited July 13, 2012 by gardenmom5

[momofkhm]

I know all about cat allergies, but I wouldn't even imagine about asking because the protien in the saliva stays around for over 25 years, so unless they're looking at new...

:grouphug:

 

I wish I'd known this before. When we sold our first house, the wife had cat allergies. When they asked how long we'd had the cat, I said a few months, maybe a year. (The answer was accurate then, I just don't remember now.) But what didn't even occur to me then is that we had a cat when we moved it, it died, we had months without a cat and the current cat (at that time) we'd only had a few months. So the house had only been without a cat for 6 months, maybe, out of 5 years.

[jewellsmommy]

By cat smell, do people mean cat urine smell? Because I am familiar with the smell of dog, especially wet dog :ack2:, but I have never encountered a cat smell :001_huh:. If a cat sprays, yea, that smell is hard to get rid of. But I have never met a smelly cat, even when wet :tongue_smilie:.

 

I know allergies are a totally different thing. If you have bad allergies to cat you have to take out all carpet or re-sand/re-do wood floors, wash and re-paint the whole interior, and vacuum all the other nooks and crannies. And, almost forgot, airduct cleaning too. This is a pain but generally worked for the one person I knew who had severe allergic reactions to cat. The other 2 people I know are allergic but not so bad that they have to go through all that.

[BigMamaBird]

By cat smell, do people mean cat urine smell? Because I am familiar with the smell of dog, especially wet dog :ack2:, but I have never encountered a cat smell :001_huh:. If a cat sprays, yea, that smell is hard to get rid of. But I have never met a smelly cat, even when wet :tongue_smilie:.

 

I'm curious too. Our cat died this spring :crying: and he didn't "smell." If you stuck your nose in his fur he had a warm, almost sweet scent, but never anything I noticed. My dog on the other hand is a bouquet of foul odors.

[vonfirmath]

I'm curious too. Our cat died this spring :crying: and he didn't "smell." If you stuck your nose in his fur he had a warm, almost sweet scent, but never anything I noticed. My dog on the other hand is a bouquet of foul odors.

 

I don't know. But I lived with a girl with two cats for a while and had a friend who "smelled" cat on me whenever I got in the car with her. I had to stop riding with her because it gave her such problems.

[catz]

We've had cats in our house for 12 years and the owner before us had a cat.

I'm always asking people if they think our house smells like cat (people who will be honest with me) and they always say no.

Did all these people have problems with their cats peeing outside of the litter box?

And I just must be a total cat person, because there's no way I would want to get rid of our cats or not get another one in the future, even if it would make it harder to sell our house. I'm such a softie for cats. :tongue_smilie:

 

:iagree: We had 2 cats at our last house and had no problem selling our house. No one ever said anything about our cats. And they were always in the house for showings. I've never had a cat that has had a litter box issue though. Our house smells more like old house than anything (our house is 100 years old and has a really light musty smell in humid conditions).

 

We have 2 different cats now in our current house and if they died tomorrow, we'd replace them. We actually do not have an wall to wall carpeting in our current house (all hard woods, tile, etc). I totally understand why someone might not want to see houses where cats currently live. That sounds like a huge realtor problem to me!

[jewellsmommy]

I don't know. But I lived with a girl with two cats for a while and had a friend who "smelled" cat on me whenever I got in the car with her. I had to stop riding with her because it gave her such problems.

 

 

If it gave her problems, though, that sounds like an allergy issue? I wonder if she described it that way because it effected her nose (as in allergy). Just a thought.

[TranquilMind]

eta: what people with cats need to understand - it isn't always the smell. it's the dander that causes my eyes to water and my sinuses to close within minutes of entering a room with a cat.

 

Right! This. I've had to leave people's homes and so has my daughter because there were cats there. In one case, the cat was outside, but everyone was holding it and then my daughter couldn't stay around those people even when they went in. She was waiting outside when I picked her up.

[Sarah CB]

Yes, they do. I won't even look at one because I can't tolerate it. Why can't people have aquariums?

 

I'm sorry, but I'd never go and look at a house that had an aquarium.

[tex-mex]

I'm sorry, but I'd never go and look at a house that had an aquarium.

:lol::lol::lol:

[Element]

I can walk into a house and know if there are cats there. If the carpeting is old enough and not be thoroughly cleaned I have been able to tell if a cat had lived in the house in the past 5 years. I've never had the opportunity to see if I could tell farther back then that. My eyes start itching, swell up and I have an asthma attack.

 

My ds is the same way. I'm sorry.

 

I would look at a house that had cats, but I would be really mad if the realtor had not forewarned us about the cats.

[TranquilMind]

I'm sorry, but I'd never go and look at a house that had an aquarium.

At least the aquarium goes with the owner. Cat smell is forever.

[Susan C.]

We bought a house, the previous owner had cats. It smelled like cat pee until we ripped out the carpets (and padding), replaced the floor vents, AND painted the subfloor w/oil based paint everywhere there was a stain. Shampooing the carpet did no good.