Hi everone on /r/personalfinance, I got some great advice a couple of months back from this post, where I was working out the source of a remarkably high electric bill and how to deal with it between myself and the other tenants who I split utilities with. I have an update, and I've been working on what to do about it, and could use some advice.
After getting that high bill, I contacted the landlord and asked if he had anything running in the garage (shared circuit with the house), and he said he didn't. However, the next day he showed up, ran inside the garage and left, following which time our electric usage dropped roughly by half. In the usage logs, it's clear as day the usage drops by half, the day he dropped by.
I asked him about it the next time we spoke, and he outright denies anything that could have been his responsibility, instead blaming our downstairs neighbours. I'm fairly sure he's lying to me, and had a space heater running in the garage all winter.
Right now I'm out $400-500, feeling pretty taken advantage of, and considering going to the tenancy board for mediation, but a little apprehensive of the potential retaliation once I do so. i have a lease for the next 12 months but don't want to make things less stable for my wife and kids. Reading posts online about similar situations, I see this one and it seems to match my situation, I'm thinking of getting the power company involved, apparently the term for our situation is a "foreign load" on my electric bill. I don't see anything in my local (BC Hydro) about this specific situation, but would assume it's similar to the jurisdiction discussed in the linked post.
The other change I'll be making is going forward, paying my share of the utilities directly to the company. I learned with the last post (and reading some local tenants rights documents) that when the electric is in the landlord's name, it's actually his responsibility to collect utilities from the tenants, and my whole weird split in the first place came from his deferring to my neighbours. I'll be paying my own directly now and insisting on the original split.
Interested to hear anyone's thoughts, or how you've handled similar situations. I'm pretty frustrated, and feel taken advantage of, but also don't want to risk getting renovicted in the net renewal cycle if I do make a stink about it all.
Submitted May 09, 2022 at 11:35PM by superhelical https://ift.tt/3f1Qhlo
