Trulia adds "pet friendly" and "large dogs" to my listing

[Kimberly H.]

So, anytime I use a service that sends my listing to all the major rental listing websites so I don't have to enter it manually ten times,  Trulia and Zillow add their own notes to my listing, like "Pet Friendly" to my main picture in the search view, and "large dogs", and "pets accepted" in the listing text.

All the original source listing says is dogs negotiable. We don't take cats, so I don't consider my listing "pet friendly" like Trulia likes to label it. I double checked and these websites know we don't take cats.

From time to time people have gotten pissed off,"your add says you accept large dogs!" or "it says pet friendly!"  Had a guy today lose his mind after his app got rejected,"Your listing says you take large dogs!!"... although his are pitbulls and the listing doesn't say ALL large dogs.

Is there an *easy* way to fix this at Zillow or Trulia?

I can't remove "dogs negotiable" from the source listing, since that is used in the algorithm that asks potential tenants who want a showing our prescreening questions, if I remove it the algorithm will block anyone that has a dog from a showing.

[Gail K.]

Yes; these will show up as Pet Friendly.   Unfortunately this occurs when you highlight that you'll take pets (versus indicating "no pets").

 However, I make sure my ad provides the specifics such as "Pets with owner approval; no puppies please, no aggressive breeds".

This, of course, assumes that applicants READ the posting; an assumption I'm finding is more hopeful than realistic with some of the contacts I'm getting.

BTW, after several years of having to fix up pet damage/fleas we finally started including a pet deposit of $250 but are generous (I think) in returning this deposit at the end of the lease if the pets do not do damage.  I once got a phone call from a guy whose FIRST comment was "I have a 5 pound (something or other) dog and I have NO intention of paying a $250 pet deposit".   I said "thanks for letting me know" and hung up on him.

Gail