Emotional Support Animal

[Kaitlyn Seigfried]

I know there are a lot of questions on this topic. My situation is we had a tenant move in on a Saturday and on Wednesday we found out they have a cat. We have a not pets policy. I also want to mention that they moved in in the middle of the month and we don't start leases in the middle of the month so their lease technically hadn't started yet when we found out about the cat, a fact I feel like would work against us. They had already paid the security deposit and rental fees. 

When approached about the cat the tenant said it was her mom's that she was watching for the week. We told her she had to remove the cat. She then placed it on us that we shouldn't have been in her apartment when she wasn't there. We went in because the day before they had flooded the apartment due to not notifying us about a leak in the shower. We were going in to see if the flooring was drying properly. Anyway her boyfriend called later and stated that it was his girlfriends cat. Again they were told to remove it. Later that same day we get an email stating that their cat is now an emotional support animal. The exact verbiage they used is "our cat           is now a registered emotional support cat and cannot be discriminated against no matter the issue" Clearing showing that the cat was a pet when it was discovered. 

Is there anything I can do here or do I just have to deal with it. We don't plan on renewing. However, since they literally just moved in I have to wait a whole year before being rid of them