I first moved to San Francisco for grad school back in the summer of 1975. Ancient history, I know, but then as now this was not an easy place to find rentals when your family included pets (especially big dogs, the hardest to hide from potential landlords). In fact, I scored my first apartment only because the landlord took pity on me when my not-so-reliable VW station wagon (which had barely made the cross-country drive from upstate New York) broke down in front of his building. Up until then, I'd been sleeping in the back with Hamish and Jasper who, combined, were 165 pounds of wonderful dog. Stranded there in front of his building, the landlord took pity on us and let us rent his tiny place at the corner of Golden Gate Park and the beach.
1975 was, of course, pre-internet (how did we survive?), back at a time when most rentals were found through hand-lettered signs in empty living-room windows, newspaper ads and word of mouth. The world has changed a lot since then, but finding a place to rent which allows pets remains a challenge. A new tech age tool may be the answer.
Nick deWilde handles marketing for Zumper, an SF based apartment rental startup. deWilde explains that Zumper (which, by the way, does not sound like the start of sentence about something real, but this is) has now just finished collaborating with Curbed SF to create an article/map of pet friendly buildings in San Francisco. So for those of you looking, here's a link.