If you do not then you are simply giving money away because you do not understand the business or because you are soft hearted  Tenants are not soft hearted so you are only doing it to make yourself feel better. 

There is a $35.00 Non refundable background check that the applicant needs to pay to smartmove.Look at the ID of the person when they get to the property,.......and make sure it matches the person.....A quick tip on showing......and setting rental prices.......Do a "soft advertisement on Craigslist with all the info.....but without the actual address.....just the name of the street.....see if you get lots of responses quickly.......if you do......that means you need to take the ad down for a couple days and then re advertise it at a higher price..............I advertise on CL and when the phone rings.....Do NOT ANSWER.............let people leave voicemail .....you want to see if when they leave a message they sound like someone that you may feel comfortable talking with on a daily basis......And DO NOT DO OPEN HOUSES..............What you need to do is when the first person you talk to that you get a good vibe with expresses an interest in seeing the house......you tell them I'm showing it Saturday at 10am and Sunday at 3pm...........then be quiet.....they will pick a time.......and you repeat that process with everyone that calls and make sure it at or around the same time slot as everyone else.....Don't tell them other people will be there also......When they do show up and they see other people there also.....it creates more of a demand for the room :-)   Also...pick a time that is withinn 24 hours of talkin with the person....if you talk with them Monday afternoon....tell them you are showing it tonight at 7 and tommorow at 6.        

Personally I believe it is because those landlords accepting pets are simply too soft hearted to say no.

Your best best is to do a soft probe on both fronts.

For rust stains, we recommend using a 1:1 ratio of CLR and warm water.Apply it directly to the rust spot using a scrub brush or soft scrub pad and then rinse with cold clean water.

Subwoofers (audio speakers dedicated to a powerful bass reverberation) are an inherent menace to anyone near a person using one. 

The fact that you let the rent go so far behind just shows how compassionate you are as a family member, and you are right, that 'soft spot,' does fall under one of the infinite reasons why not to do business with family.

The church is usually a soft touch for sob stories.

It's much harder to enforce rules after you've been soft.

They tend to go in soft, lose potential money on rent and generally allow the tenants to control them because the tenants were in place.