Comfort cat. Fair housing law question.

[Christopher Lawrence]

Hello,

I was wondering if any of you have had a situation like this arise. I own a college rental property with 6 students renting for a yearly lease. They came to us as a group of 6 and signed the lease without ever disclosing any information about a comfort cat. 

A few days ago we started receiving complaints from one of the tenants that another has a cat and will not listen to the complaints of the other roommates about having one in the house. Our lease states that the tenants are not allowed to have pets but we were made aware that she has a doctors note stating she needs this cat and that we do not have the ability to deny housing because of it. Additionally now one of the other tenants is complaining about a skin condition that she believes is developing from the cat (showed us a picture of a rash appearing on her face)

I guess my question is, do we have any course of action here in terms of removing the pet. They did not make us aware prior to signing the lease, however I understand she may need it for health reasons. The issue is that now it seems to be posing a health hazard to one of her fellow tenants and she does not have any consideration for this. Is it on the tenant who is developing the rash to get some sort of doctors opinion that the cat is to blame? Is it our job to resolve this or is it amongst the tenants at this point since the cat would be permitted under the fair housing law? Any information would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Chris