A MELBOURNE woman with two assistance dogs says she was forced to live in a storage locker and her car after being constantly rejected for rentals, because “landlords don’t want animals”.

Monique Penberthy said she became homeless last year after struggling to find a Melbourne rental for herself, her husband Rowan and her assistance dogs — despite applying for “100s of properties” and having a spotless 17-year rental history.

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Her story follows a recent national tenants survey by Choice, National Shelter and the National Association of Tenants’ Organisations, in which half the respondents reported experiencing discrimination while looking for a rental — 23 per cent for having a pet and 5 per cent because of a disability.

It’s also emerged in the final stages of a Victorian Government review of rental laws, in which the banning of unreasonable “no pets” clauses in tenancy agreements is being considered among a host of proposed changes to the Residential Tenancies Act.

When Ms Penberthy was finally accepted into a Hastings property following her long search, the offer was pulled after she went into the real estate agency with her mobility assistance dog, Nikolai.

“I went in to sign the lease with cheques for four weeks’ rent and the bond accompanied by Nikolai, who helps me walk, and they said, ‘we’ll have to talk to the owner about this’,” she said.

“I gave them Nikolai’s ID, but they rescinded the offer. I left there in tears with nowhere to go but my car.”

The 33-year-old, who also relies on a diabetic alert dog Luigi, sought help from a friend at Legal Aid to fight the rejection.

She said the agency attempted to argue that the property was “not suitable for someone with a disability” and that there was “no room for dogs”.

But her lawyer cited the Equal Opportunity Act, which states that “a person must not refuse to provide accommodation to a person with a disability because that person has an assistance dog”, and Ms Penberthy secured the rental again.

She lived there for almost a year but has recently moved, partially because the agency and landlord were “so disagreeable”.

Ms Penberthy, the founder of assistance dogs advocacy organisation Please Don’t Pat Me Australia, wants landlords and property managers to be better educated about the Equal Opportunity Act so other assistance dog users don’t endure the struggles she has.

“People don’t understand what an assistance dog is, if it’s not for vision impairment,” she said.

“Having an assistance dog is not optional — I don’t have pets, I have medical equipment.”

She also thinks landlords should be forced to accept pets in general, as keeping animals “shouldn’t just be the privilege of people with a mortgage”, and said the fact they didn’t have to disclose why they’d rejected a tenant was also a problem.

“It’s very easy for them to discriminate by saying ‘there were more suitable tenants’,” she said.

Tenants Union of Victoria policy officer Yaelle Caspi said discrimination against tenants with assistance dogs was part of the wider problem of pets being unreasonably barred from rentals.

Ms Caspi said the union believed tenants should only have to notify landlords that they have a pet or intend to get one, rather than ask for permission to have one, and had recently launched the Make Renting Fair Campaign to address issues like pet-owner discrimination.

“The bond should be enough to cover any potential damage caused by a pet,” she said.

An options paper released as part of Victoria’s rental law review said landlords were typically reluctant to allow pets due to concerns they could “disturb neighbours or cause significant damage … that may exceed the bond” to an investment property.

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