Someone in Silicon Valley is renting a studio apartment for $1,500 a month just for his two cats

Maine Coon cat

A Silicon Valley landlord is renting his San Jose studio apartment to a pair of cats, whose owner couldn't keep them in his own apartment, according to a San Jose Mercury News report on Sunday.
Rent for the cats is $1,500 per month.
“Basically I’ve got two renters that don’t have opposable thumbs,” the landlord said.

Rental prices in Silicon Valley have skyrocketed to some of the highest in the country, as troves of tech workers have made the move with grand dreams of cashing in on the next big thing. Now, prospective renters may have to start competing for the limited amount of housing with our four-legged friends, too.

On Sunday, the San Jose Mercury News reported that a Silicon Valley landlord is renting his studio apartment to a pair of Maine Coon-mixed cats, whose owner couldn't keep them in his own apartment.

“Basically I’ve got two renters that don’t have opposable thumbs,” the landlord, David Callisch, told the Mercury. “It’s actually great. They’re very quiet, obviously. The only problem is they stink up the place.”

Rent for the cats — named Tina and Louise, after characters from the animated show Bob's Burgers — is $1,500 per month, according to the report.

Callisch says the situation happened by chance, as his friend Troy Good — the renter in question, who builds custom phone booths for tech offices with open floor plans — needed a place for his daughter's beloved cats to live while she moved away to college. The felines, apparently, were not getting along with his fiance's terrier dog.

The situation has struck some as absurd, given Silicon Valley's ongoing housing crisis.

"Silicon Valley is a place with so much inequality where thousands of people sleep on the streets every night while someone rents a below-market studio for $1,500 a month to two cats," tweeted Seattle Times real estate reporter Mike Rosenberg.

Silicon Valley is a place with so much inequality where thousands of people sleep on the streets every night while someone rents a below-market studio for $1,500 a month to two catshttps://t.co/2n3FKmRs3h
— Mike Rosenberg (@ByRosenberg) January 13, 2019

The cats do keep an active Instagram account to show off their apartment living. The account — described as "Two spoiled Maine coon/ Bombay sisters" — can be found here.

Read the full San Jose Mercury News report here.

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