You don’t have a choice. You’re gonna have to pay the pet deposit now or face eviction. There are absolutely no tenant rights when it comes to pets. Count your blessings that you’re not being evicted. When we find pets we charge our tenants a pet cleaning fee and require the pet to be relocated. Personally where I work, we have a strict pet policy. If you were renting at my property, you would be asking about how to stop an eviction.

BTW: Its perfectly legal for your landlord to inspect your unit for compliance anytime they wish. It has no merit that they were doing an unrelated maintenance request.

Wrong! Warning reality check coming… You are the one that violated the lease by bringing in a pet and now you are responsible for those actions. I’m not a landlord, but I used to work for a cleaning company that would frequently get apartments ready for rent. Apartments that had pets always cost much more to clean and took many more hours to do. Some people are very sensitive to pet dander, thus apartment complexes will charge a non-refundable pet deposit. The fact that you have a pet without permission makes you fully responsible for the fee. You don’t have the luxury to wait until you renew your lease… You have the pet now, you will be required to pay now.

If you don’t pay the fee immediately, I can almost guarantee that you will be evicted. I hope your cat’s worth it!!