For $1,500 a month, California landlord rents studio apartment to 2 cats

Many apartments have restrictions on renters having pets. But what happens when the renters are the pets?

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A California man is renting his Silicon Valley studio apartment to a pair of cats for $1,500 a month, The Mercury News reported. The apartment lacks a kitchen, but cats are not known for their culinary skills, so it all works out.

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

The rent for the cats, named Tina and Louise, is paid by Troy Good, 43, who is footing the bill while his daughter, 18-year-old Victoria Amith, attends college at Azuza Pacific University, the News reported. Amith could not take the cats to the university, since the dorms do not allow pets.

Good, who had moved into a new apartment with his fiancee and her dog when her daughter left for college last fall, did not want to abandon the cats, who have been in the family since they were kittens. So, he had to find a solution, since the cats -- Maine Coon and Bombay mixes, named after characters from the television show, "Bob's Burgers" -- still sleep together on the same bed, the newspaper reported.

When Callisch was looking to rent the studio apartment on Airbnb, Good pitched the idea of renting the apartment to the cats, the News reported. Callisch liked the idea, and the cats moved in last summer.

“It’s just a weird thing that happened, that’s all,” Callisch, who works in marketing for Nyansa, an analytics software company, told the newspaper.

Callisch goes into the apartment daily to feed and play with the cats, and Good stops by regularly, according to the News. Amith visits when she has a break from school.

"They definitely have the nicest cat apartment in Silicon Valley," Good, a custom furniture designer, told the News.

Not everyone is enamored with a pair of cats living in luxury. Jennifer Loving, the CEO of Destination Home -- which works to end homelessness in Santa Clara County -- called arrangement “peak Silicon Valley.”

"While this story is funny, it really does highlight the tremendous inequity in the Silicon Valley," Loving told the News. "We have thousands of people on our streets, and we're paying to make sure that our cats have a place to live."

Cox Media Group