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Water Bill + Electric
Mmmm... Cocks...
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
This is the first time I've lived in a place where I've had to pay utilities.
Now we just moved in, and the landlord asked us what needed to be fixed. We brought up the toilet would occasionally stick and run water among some other small things.
We got our water bill, 1,200 bucks, which is more then our rent even. We can't pay this, no way.
He says he typically pays it, except for excess situations as the lease says.
Do we have any recourse on this? I mean, I would come home and both my room mates would be gone and I'd find their toilet running, probably for hours.
I would imagine since the toilet is broken we'd have some leverage.
Edit: I forgot to mention the electric to. We've been averaging 200 dollar electric bills and we have one small 12 inch TV and our laptops and a fridge.
But this month the bill was only 60 bucks. :?:
Now we just moved in, and the landlord asked us what needed to be fixed. We brought up the toilet would occasionally stick and run water among some other small things.
We got our water bill, 1,200 bucks, which is more then our rent even. We can't pay this, no way.
He says he typically pays it, except for excess situations as the lease says.
Do we have any recourse on this? I mean, I would come home and both my room mates would be gone and I'd find their toilet running, probably for hours.
I would imagine since the toilet is broken we'd have some leverage.
Edit: I forgot to mention the electric to. We've been averaging 200 dollar electric bills and we have one small 12 inch TV and our laptops and a fridge.
But this month the bill was only 60 bucks. :?:
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Where I live, there are 4 of us in a house, and the water portion of our bill is roughly $100 I think. I'd look into the cost of the bill.
IIRC I'm not sure if he's fixed it even.
There's only three of us for the curious.
No washing machine, but a dish washer.
I'll speak to the land lord about it but I wanted some more insight before I approached him.
He obviously has way more experience dealing with tenants then I do dealing with landlords.
Call your water delivery service and go "what the fuck?"
If you told the landlord about the toilet running, and he did nothing about it, you're not liable for the bill. As it's his responsibility to keep the facilities in the unit repaired, any problems stemming from not repairing them are his to deal with.
But I'm glad to hear you all saying it's extreme and if somehow, in some way, we used that much water it's not our problem.
Assuming you don't leave every faucet in your house on all the time, flush the toilet every 30 seconds, and do 20 loads of dishes a day, yeah it's extreme. I would be thinking something was wrong if I got a water bill for a month that was over $100. This is monthly right, not quarterly or annual?
But no, this bill is quarterly for whomever asked that.
Not that I imagine that changes much.
I'm going to try and get in touch with him later.
This may likely be part of the problem. For my first bill, there was a deposit of $370 (once your lease is over or whatever, you get that money back). So, let's say your deposit was for $400, and you said it was quarterly, so you're paying for 3 months worth of water/electricity, so that's about $266/month. Granted, that that's still incredibly high, but with misuse of water, this could be probable...
WTF! Why is the landlord getting the bill? He could be saying "10 billion dollars!" and you wouldn't know the difference. Also, he did not fix the problem that was causing this when it was his job to do so. Also also, 400$ a month? you would have to be off your nut to think that could possibly be how much it is. Do they filter the water through gold there?
You need to see the actual bill and then talk to the water company to confirm, then if it is the actual real amount, say WTF to the landlord about fixing the toilet, then work out some deal where he fixes it and you get somthing off rent or some such.
but they're listening to every word I say
If there was a running toilet or leaky faucet you can let the water company know that there was a problem, let them know when it was repaired and if your usage goes down a significant amount they can refund you back a portion of what was charged. You have to give some kind of proof that it was repaired too, like a statement form the landlord or the contractor he got to fix it. That was how it worked with the Dallas water utility anyway
His argument? It's outside, it's public.
So, I took some sheers to his extension cord and told him it was outside.
She said there was apparently a mistake and the bill is significantly smaller, but still higher apparently.
Though he also said he'd take off a good portion because of the problem with the toilet.
However she failed to ask him how much the bill was even still.
Women...
But thank you all for the lovely words. This should hopefully work itself out.
Still though in the future if you are going to be paying your utilities separate from rent you should, at the very least, have a copy of the bill for your own records.