After totting it all up, Douglas Elliman’s Shawn Egan discovered nearly $75,000 worth of damage in the Bridgehampton property he helped rent out last year.

The house’s furniture cost more than $1 million in total, and couches, floors and a $30,000 Italian bed set were ravaged in the five-bedroom home which rents for up to $125,000 in the summer.

The culprit?

The tenant’s seven-pound Maltese.

“The hardwood floors had accidents on them,” he said. “The couches ended up getting stuffing pulled out. The upholstery was ripped.”

Stories like this have become more common as a seeming Noah’s Ark of pets has descended on the staid hamlets out East in the past year. “Everybody is showing up with a pet now,” Egan said, estimating that 50 percent of renters in the area come with a Fido or two attached.

The surge in rental-seeking pet moms and dads has put homeowners who fear for their cherished white oak flooring, sheepskin rugs or designer chairs between a rock and a soft, fluffy place. If you don’t accept dogs, you might not find anyone to summer under your roof. “It’s a big challenge for homes that don’t allow pets,” Compass’ Yorgos Tsibiridis said.

Not quite man’s best friend

Pet ownership exploded across the U.S. during the pandemic, as cats and dogs provided companionship to people stuck at home. Without work or travel, the challenge of being home in time for the pet’s feeding or walk evaporated.

Since then, some New York pet owners have been looking to let their animals roam free through the beaches and towns dotting the east end of Long Island — often to the ire of locals. (The locals have pups too, but of course they’re well-behaved.)

Many Hamptons towns and villages already limit dogs on beaches in the high season, and some have looked to crack down on those rules even further.

In 2023, the town of Sagaponack, which restricts dogs from its beaches during the summer months between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., proposed banning them for all hours during the summer, a rule similar to neighboring beaches in the town of Southampton. (The amendment did not pass.)

Attendees at the meeting to discuss the potential arrangement pointed to out-of-towners who “might not take pride in the beach and are therefore less likely to abide by the rules,” according to the minutes.

Since then, the out-of-towners and their rule-breaking canines have only seemed to proliferate.

Doggo or nothing

Unlike in past years, landlords have lost some of their bargaining power as the rental market has changed. Inventory is still tight at the highest price points, but at the even slightly lower ones, owners have to negotiate with tenants who want shorter durations or wait longer to book.That leaves owners nowhere to turn but to a tenant and their dog.

“If anything, it seems like people are much more forgiving of pets,” Saunders & Associates’ Ed Gaetjens said. “People want to rent their homes this year,” he said, adding that “if you really want to rent your home, you’ll take Fluffy.”

Tsibiridis said he has clients with a no-pet policy that have had trouble renting their home going into the summer months. “They call me every week five times, asking ‘why hasn’t it rented?’” he said.

Other, more pliant owners have resorted to a number of preventative measures to make sure their pristine manses are left spotless, if not Spot-less.

“There’s a discussion about if there are pets, how many there are, the size, the breed,” said Starr Associates’ partner Shaun Pappas, and pictures are sometimes shared. From there, owners will often take a non-refundable pet deposit, or charge a monthly pet fee to cover potential damage or additional cleaning, he said.

The pet deposits can run up to $10,000, but even that’s not enough sometimes. Pappas, who represented Egan’s client, said that he had to negotiate with the tenant to pull extra money from the security deposit to cover the damage.

Douglas Elliman’s Dawn Neway said she had an owner restrict the rooms that a tenant’s dog could enter. “They had a list of rules,” she said. “The dog could stay in two rooms.” Neway had another owner that “freaked out” when they realized a tenant had washed a Great Dane in the bathtub, which they discovered from a leftover bottle of dog shampoo.

Brown Harris Stevens’ Lisa Simonsen is working with one landlord in East Hampton who is requiring proof of training and an obedience school certificate.

Still, once a renter shows up, there’s only so much an owner can do to enforce dog rules, and sometimes tenants do misrepresent their animal situation.

“One guy said, ‘Yeah, I have two dogs,” Egan said, describing one potential renter last year.  “Next thing, he shows up with six.”

The owner accepted the pack, which Egan called “big, long and fluffy.” They ultimately didn’t cause any damage, perhaps an indication that all of the picture-sharing and breed-analyzing can only get an owner so far.

“You could have one dog that is the cutest, nicest, little-looking dog, and they do a lot of damage,” he said. “Or you could have six of the biggest-looking dogs and they do nothing.”

Egan’s landlord from Bridgehampton who suffered at the paws of the seven-pound hell-raiser hasn’t officially outlawed pets going forward. But their renter this year? Pet-free.

https://therealdeal.com/magazine/july-2025/pet-problems-plague-hamptons-rental-market/