Moving On: Fighting the (Housing) Man

Phew, I haven't got that riled up in a while now. That, my friends, is why it is impolite to discuss politics at the dinner table.

Let's find something less controversial to write about.

Being the end of the month I knew I would be seeing the utility bill from management soon. I had allotted $50 in my budget to cover any electrical and gas expenses for May. I was hoping that this $50 would have plenty of extra room since May was fairly warm and we only needed the heat on for about 7-12 days.

When I saw the bill located on the door reading $115 I was a little enraged. That was more than double what we'd paid any previous month. It was ridiculous. So on Friday we went to the management office to tell them we would not be paying that amount, and asking to see the bills from the utility companies. Turns out their workers are just incompetent and their management unfamiliar with legal contracts.

The worker dividing up the bill did it incorrectly, so when it read $115 it should have said $76. The second part was that one of the managers decided that since two of the people with contracts weren't actually living here that they'd just charge the two of us for all the utilities. Now, from their perspective I can follow that thought process. But, we must also consider two other points of view:

1. In order to heat a house there is a baseline amount of gas that will be used regardless of how many people are actually living there, and since we only kept the heat at 65 F it wasn't like we were being excessive. So doubling our utilities bills is not fair to us simply because the other contract holders don't live in the unit.

2. The contract holders signed a contract stating that they would pay for utilities. They still hold the contracts (despite not living in the unit due to being unable to sell them) ergo they are still legally obligated to help pay for utilities.

To top it off, if they were suddenly to decide to change the distribution of the utility bill they should have had the courtesy of discussing it with us first.

Having taken care of the matter the $115 bill has returned to a more anticipated bill of $38.

Why do you have to fight with people just to get things done the way they're supposed to be in the first place? Why do the people that are too nice or perhaps not as savvy about things like this have to get screwed out of their money? We're the best tenants this company has ever had and they recognize us as such. We take care of the property, make it a million times better than it was when we moved in; just treat us with respect.