California’s Bay Area may have a housing crisis — but these freeloading renters are having a furball.
Louise and Tina’s high-profile 425-square-foot, $1,500-a-month studio apartment in one of the most expensive housing markets in America doesn’t even have a kitchen. Well, these two don’t do much cooking anyway.
They’re cats.
“It’s quirky, isn’t it? I never planned for this to happen,” the kitties’ Silicon Valley landlord, David Callisch, tells a news crew from the local CBS affiliate. He adds that, as non-smokers and non-drinkers, the fluffy pair — named after characters on the hit animated series “Bob’s Burgers” — are ideal tenants who “mind themselves, don’t complain” and always pay their rent on time.
Plus, “They don’t drink. They don’t smoke. They don’t play loud music,” Callisch tells ABC7. Still, as most things do these days, this seemingly peaceful living situation has sparked ample online outrage.
“While this story is funny, it really does highlight the tremendous inequity in the Silicon Valley,” Jennifer Loving, CEO of Destination Home, an organization dedicated to fighting homelessness in Santa Clara County, tells the East Bay Times. “We have thousands of people on our streets, and we’re paying to make sure that our cats have a place to live.”
Plenty of pet lovers have previously modeled their homes and lives around their critters, but this kitty casita in San Jose, California, is certainly next level.
The hairy situation of two cats living alone developed after their owner, Victoria Amith, 18, moved into the freshman dorms at Southern California’s Azusa Pacific University, where Louise and Tina weren’t welcome.
Initially, the two lived with her father, 43-year-old Troy Good, his fiancée and the fiancée’s dog. When the pets proved bad housemates, Good turned to Callisch, a family “buddy,” who originally planned on using this purr pad as an Airbnb. (Yes, dad is footing the bill here.)
While Tina and Louise have little use for the apartment’s bathroom, shower or Apple TV, they’re big fans of its cat tree. And though the rent might seem obscene for animals alone, it’s actually on the lower end of the spectrum for the residential Willow Glen neighborhood, where the average studio goes for $1,900 a month, according to RentCafe.
Amith isn’t some clueless college student. She’s highly aware how coveted her cat house is since “there is obviously a huge housing issue in the area, and I don’t want people being, like, ‘Oh, they’re just taking away the housing.'”
“I don’t have that high standard of like my cats need a whole house to themselves,” she says. “That’s just kind of how the cards were dealt.”
Callisch acknowledges that the cats live in an area where the differences between the haves and the have nots are alarming.
“I can speak to that but it’s difficult because there’s so much homeless and so much disparity in incomes in this valley,” he says. “It’s hard — and one person can’t solve those problems.”
