One of the hardest things to do in this day and age is to find an apartment that actually allows pets. You can search and search for days and the most you can hope for is a place that will allow you to have a fish or maybe a parrot. If you are a lover of cats or of small dogs, you may find living in downtown Dallas or Fort Worth to be almost impossible. If you do manage to get lucky, however, you will be required to pay a pet deposit. A pet deposit is usually $100-$300 and simply covers any possible damage that your pet might cause on the apartment. Let’s take a look at some things you can do to reduce the appearance of pet damage in your apartment.

The most common source of pet damage in an apartment is pet urine and feces stains on a carpet. Nothing can send a beautiful carpet to an early grave better than pet urine stains that appear to be removed, but once you pull up the carpet and look underneath, you see that most of the stain, and the urine, is still there. That’s why it is extremely important that you steam clean your carpet before you move out. This $50-$75 investment is more than worth it since it can take even the ugliest carpet and make it look new again.

The second most common source of pet damage is claw and scratch marks. These are a little tougher to hide, but with a small amount of spackle to fill the holes and some fresh paint, no one will ever notice there was a problem in the first place.

Having a pet means looking out for pet damage, but you don’t have to let it cost you your pet deposit or your security deposit.