A city landlord’s plea last week for help in limiting the number of animals a tenant is allowed isn’t the first such plea. Nor will it be the last until federal guidance curbs the overreach of court decisions that have granted emotional support animals the same status as service animals. In the case of Robin Persaud, a Lakewood resident who owns rental properties in Jamestown, the issue of tenants having too many cats by claiming they are emotional support animals is one that largely is above the City Council’s pay grade.

For years landlords who didn’t want the hassle of cleaning a property after a tenant had a pet could include in their lease that the apartment was pet-free. In 2003, the federal Housing and Urban Development department issued guidance explicitly saying an exception to a “no pets” policy for an assistance animal generally qualifies as a reasonable accommodation. Landlords can still request the tenant receive a letter from a mental health professional saying the animal is needed, but 2003 guidance makes enforcing limits on pets on residences pretty difficult.

In New York state, tenants have the responsibility of taking care of the animal including things like making sure their animal is being fed, groomed, and is housebroken. The tenant also has the responsibility to make sure that the animal does not become a nuisance to other tenants in such a way that fundamentally alters the habitability of the building – such as excessive barking. The tenant also has a responsibility to make sure the animal does not physically injure other tenants.

It’s time for the federal government to walk back some of these policies, as happened late in 2020 when the federal Transportation Department issued a rule saying airlines no longer will be required to carry support animals in their cabins. Since the government had updated its guidance in 2003 granting emotional support animals similar treatment to service animals on flights, the number of emotional support animals on board skyrocketed. The new rule – proposed in the waning days of the Trump presidency and implemented during the Biden presidency – changed the definition of a service animal under the Air Carrier Access Act to include only dogs that are individually trained to do work or perform tasks for a person with a disability. That removed equal protection for emotional support animals and means airlines are no longer required to accommodate emotional support animals as they once were. Airlines can now treat emotional support animals as pets, which means passengers must follow the airline’s standard pet policies, including paying a fee.

Not all tenants abuse emotional support animal protections in the law, just as not all air travelers abused those protections. But enough have abused the federal government’s protections to the point that other people are being affected. There should be a middle ground between a tenant’s rights to emotional support animals and a landlord’s right to protect an investment. The federal government tweaked emotional support animal guidance once. It should do so again on a larger scale.