MONTREAL - Every year around moving time countless pets are heartlessly cast aside by their owners, partly because their owners' new homes will not accommodate pets.

According to the SPCA, this year could be particularly bad, as they suspect the customary total of abandoned pets could rise about 20 percent this year.

And that total includes only the abandoned pets that they know of.

"We get just one tiny portion of the animals that are abandoned or left as strays or left in apartments during the moving day season," said Alanna Devine, Director of Animal Advocacy at the SPCA.

The SPCA said that the statistics suggest that three percent of Quebec landlords said they would accept a dog, while 42 percent would permit a cat living in one of their units.

A representative from a group representing landlords suggests that if landlords are refusing pets, it's for a reason.

"Those numbers clearly say that those landlords have had bad experiences in the past," said Hans Brouillard of CORPIQ.

The SPCA blames landlords who refuse pets for part of the high rate of pet abandonment.

It's a trend that's particularly visible among those less well-off, according to Devine.

"Particularly for low-income families that don't have necessarily the luxury of purchasing their own place, that are limited in what apartments they can afford," said Devine, who would like to see Quebec copy Ontario, which outlawed ‘no-pet' clauses in 1997.

Quebec's corporation of real estate owners surveyed almost 1,300 of its members in 2010 and they expressed a will to continue the common police of keeping a ‘no-pet' clause in residential leases.

Other places that have banned clauses banning pets in apartments include France and Belgium where a landlord must prove that a pet is disturbing others.

Brouillard said that scrapping the ban should not be on the agenda as landlords, "just want to avoid new problems by putting in their lease, at the very beginning, a ban for all kind of pets. Of course if landlords want to do their own thing and have pets, they can."

The SPCA argues that pet ownership is a private matter and renters should be able to enjoy their pets.

According to a study done by the Animal League Defence Fund, Quebec ranked last in the country in provincial legislation for pet-friendly housing.