I just had 2 travel nurses move into a furnished rental I have. I went down to the apartment a couple hours after they arrived to drop off another set of keys and noticed a dog in the apartment. On of the tenants had her brother come with them and they are telling me that it is a service dog for her brother. They said he is only staying one night. What are the rules for service dogs for visitors?

If it is a furnished place and short term or mid term you should have something about no unregistered guests so he must leave. don't make it about the animal.

I'd say they can have a guest but not overnight. do you have a ring camera or other outside means of verifying who's there?

I am assuming you have a no pet policy for your AirBnb (or whatever). Sometimes I think people just like to push boundaries and believe the world revolves around themselves.

To insure a smooth and comfortable stay for both you and your service animal, please provide answers to the following HUD / ADA questions:

1. Is your service animal a dog?

2. Is the animal required because of a disability?

3. What work or task has the dog been trained to perform?

In order to maintain a safe and respectful environment for all guests, please adhere to the following guidelines if you plan to bring a service animal onto the property:

1. Service animals are not permitted to be left alone in the home at any time. Your service animal must accompany you whenever you leave the property.

2. As the guest, you are fully responsible for any damages caused by your animal.

3. Service animals must remain under control at all times, whether through physical, verbal or sight commands.

4. Service animals are required to relieve themselves outdoors. You are required to clean up after your service animal and place waste in the outdoor green garbage bins at the end of the parking lot.

5. Service animals are not allowed on furniture, beds, or countertops.

6. It is unlawful to disguise an animal as a service animal or service animal in training. Violation of NCGS 168-4.5 is a Class 3 misdemeanor. Your stay will be canceled and additional charges will be added to your bill.

We are excited to host your stay. Please do not hesitate to reach out if you have any further questions or concerns.

If it is a support animal the script gets tweaked a little

Support Animal:

To insure a smooth and comfortable stay for both you and your support animal, please provide the following documentation:

1. A written request for a support animal as a reasonable accommodation.

2. Evidence from your healthcare provider of a disability and that you have a disability-related need for an assistance animal.

In order to maintain a safe and respectful environment for all guests, please adhere to the following guidelines if you plan to bring a support animal onto the property:

1. Support animals are not permitted to be left alone in the home at any time. Your support animal must accompany you whenever you leave the property.

2. As the guest, you are fully responsible for any damages caused by your animal.

3. Support animals must remain under control at all times, whether through physical, verbal or sight commands.

4. Support animals are required to relieve themselves outdoors. You are required to clean up after your service animal and place waste in the outdoor green garbage bins at the end of the parking lot.

5. Support animals are not allowed on furniture, beds, or countertops.

6. It is unlawful to disguise an animal as a service animal or service animal in training. Violation of NCGS 168-4.5 is a Class 3 misdemeanor. Your stay will be canceled and additional charges will be added to your bill.

We are excited to host your stay. Please do not hesitate to reach out if you have any further questions or concerns.

To answer your original question of "What are the rules for service dogs for visitors?"

Visiting Service Animals and ESAs are permitted. Tenants (whether or not they have any animals themselves) are allowed to have a guest with such an animal.

As others have said, make this about the guest, not the animal. Whatever your rules for guests are is what you should follow here.

As Bonanza has said, you can ask certain questions to confirm the animal qualifies (but tread carefully). And the animal must behave.

If the dog is an actual service dog, he goes anywhere that the handicapped owner goes. Anywhere. Businesses, a friend's rental, the local school, the airlines, the courtroom..... The places where the service dog can not go are extremely limited. They can't go to a few designated areas of a hospital, although they can go to most areas of a hospital, and there are not many restrictions beyond that one.

I don't think the intent / purpose here is to deny someone their rights but to insure that the spirit of the laws are upheld.

A visitor has no rights to stay over night. The service animal/ support animal is immaterial.

the focus should be on this visitor. He has no rights to be on the property after quiet hours.

If the visitor is actually a guest, then they must be subjected to the same vetting process as all the other guests - background check, credit check or whatever your system is.

At this point, for me, if the guest comes via airbnb then I don't actually run a credit check on them. I am only allowing people with a history on airbnb. They would only be staying 7-28 days. If I get them via furnished finders, they are getting a shortened version of my long term rental application and credit, criminal, and eviction checks, and a shortened version of my lease to sign (30+ days).

Everyone is asked about animals. If they lie and bring one then their stay is terminated. If it is a service animal and they have not answered the above questions they have lied and obtained the premises under false information.

Now would I want to go to court over it? No but you can sure as heck bet that I will be on it like white on rice.

Was the dog friendly and obedient?

Marcia, Marcia, Marcia.

Be careful about how you are evaluating others.

"So it must be an emotional support dog bc this person (and I did meet him) is clearly not handicapped. He did 12 stairs, walked around just fine, etc."

I agree with the others about not judging what type of animal it is (Service or ESA) based on what you've observed.

But my point is very different: IT DOES NOT MATTER.

Service Animals and ESAs have the same rights under the Fair Housing Act. So it doesn't matter AT ALL which type this is. Both are allowed entry with guests. So, it really doesn't matter which of the two it is here.

Thanks everyone for your help and suggestions. I know a lot of people have said disregard the animal and focus on the guest. However, I do not allow dogs==period. And, even if I do focus on the guest, these tenants just moved in and did not disclose that there would be an overnight guest or a dog. They already have 2 cats, and I do not want a nice apartment to be like a zoo. A couple years ago, I had another travel nurse come in and her company was finding her housing. I was told that she had one dog. Okay. I allowed that. When I went down to the apartment the next morning to do some outside maintenance, I heard multiple animals barking. Called the company back immediately and found out that she had 2 or 3 dogs plus a couple of birds. Needless to say, I told them her lease was terminated immediateely and she found somewhere else to move to.

This is what we're trying to get you to realize: You have a NO PET policy. You can't have a NO DOG policy as that would violate federal law.

We're trying to keep you from violating federal law by telling you to focus on the guest and not the animal.

You DO allow dogs. You better allow dogs as legally required by federal law.

If your lease does not allow overnight guests, then you have an argument here. If your lease does allow overnight guests, then you don't unless something else goes wrong (i.e. the animal causes damage, makes noise to bother others, and so on). Only THEN can you focus on the animal.

Again, this is a GUEST that is visiting. It isn't turning the place into a Zoo unless they are staying too long -- which is a GUEST problem, not a DOG problem.

So, the point YOU may be trying to make is that you "do not allow more than 2 animals and they already have 2." The point WE are trying to make is that if you enforce that for an actual Service or ESA animal, then you are breaking the law. Don't do that.

This came up a month or so ago and I linked to the HUD guidance making it clear that guests were allowed to have them.

Just like you just said -- pretend it is a piece of medical equipment. Now try to ban a guest from having a wheelchair because you don't like how the wheels ride on your carpet. Or try to ban a guest from injecting insulin because you don't like syringes on your property.

A Service Animal is the same thing. You don't get to ban a piece of medical equipment that a disabled person needs.

If you allow tenant to have guests, then you have to allow guests that are disabled with their equipment -- even if that equipment is a dog.

Maybe I am wrong but I think the poster just didn't want people bringing other animals on the property. So many hide behind the ESA or misuse service animal. All animals are ESAs. Because the world has to tread carefully, most just say "service" or whatever the buzz phrase of the week is. Some are legit but I would say the majority are not. I am with above,and I have been blasted on it before, animal goes where you go.

Govt Law trumps No Pet policy. Don't fight this. You will lose. Let the dog stay and say nothing.

Pet policy doesn't matter.

What your insurance agent says doesn't matter.

The type of dog doesn't matter.

It's. A. Service. Animal. Period. Done. Nothing else matters (as Metallica sang).

Now, there is one... count it ... ONE caveat to this: If the animal acts threatening towards other people and/or causes DAMAGE to the property, you can deny based on that alone. It has to be THAT animal: not the breed tendency (i.e. pit bulls). It can't be a statistic you read. It can't be what other people say. It can't be that you are uncomfy around dogs.

The problem has to be OBSERVED with THAT SPECIFIC animal.

Thing is...service animals are well-trained NOT to threated other people and/or cause any damages to property. So if the dog is a legit service animal, you will never observe these behaviors. Unless someone does something stupid like tease the dog mercilessly, causing it to react. But that is on the person, not the dog, and would not be an excuse to deny and would probably get that person in a heap of trouble.

As someone wisely said above: a service animal is basically a piece of medical equipment. It just happens to have 4 legs and eat. You cannot deny legitimate use of medical equipment. It's illegal. It costs a pile of money for folks who mess with this law.

The dog is gone today, right? Done. No worries. If you see it again, smile and wave at the tenant and guest.

Still Learning: My opinion? My OPINION is that ESAs shouldn't be allowed as guests -- because they are so often faked.

But my opinion has little to do with the LAW. The LAW states that they are allowed -- because the FHAA doesn't treat SAs and ESAs differently.

Note that things are very different outside of housing. Home Depot has to allow SAs, but are free to ban ESAs in their stores. Very different law for them.

Bit off topic but Lowes allows anyone to bring their dogs in.

It isn't Petsmart. I don't want to have to walk around a dog on a leash to get to the stuff I need. I don't want to see dogs in carts drooling and shedding all over the place.

I get Petsmart allowing them. I do not get Lowes doing so. Not talking about service or even esa just people and their mutts.

I wonder how many fights break out with pets in Petsmart? Oh my dog is an angel... why did he do that? Oops. Ever try to break up a couple dogs fighting? Don't do it. Chances are you will get tagged by both of them.

As for the guest dog being an ESA I will not go on the record but I will be closely watching for lease violations and considering non-renewal of my MTM rents.

So many take advantage of it and ruin it for everyone else. I have family that does it. Got ESA paperwork so they could take their new mutt to the campgrounds that said no dogs. Same people had the handicap tag for the mirror that was from a dead relative. They still used it.