From an Associated Press story in the Boston Globe:

Patty Cooper, Vermont woman, wants to use a miniature horse to pull her wheelchair. But the Central Vermont Community Land Trust, which owns her housing complex, is not sure it can accommodate her request that the horse move in to a stall in her living room.

Cooper got a letter last week from the operations manager of the 24-unit housing complex where she lives expressing worry about “possible health and safety issues. So, can you tell us how you intend to dispose of the pony’s waste? Is the pony housebroken? If he is house-trained, who is going to pick up after him outside?

“What does this animal require for food?” it continued. “If it is hay and grain, as I suspect, where and how do you plan to store this food so that it will not attract rats or otherwise become a potential health risk to the other residents living in this complex?”

It went on to say the trust was investigating whether a 4-by-6-foot stall Cooper had built in her living room for [the horse] constituted an alteration and therefore a lease violation. Cooper called that “a veiled threat of eviction” on a blog she has been maintaining about the issue.

The Land Trust now says it is giving the request “careful review and consideration.”

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 20th, 2007 at 2:53 pm and is filed under accessibility, housing, service animal, wheelchair. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.  Email This Post