Recently, my roommates and I noticed that we had a high water bill even during months when we weren't home all that much. We had the city come by to check for leaks, and with the help of a neighbor, we were able to determine that our neighbor's water is on our meter (they're two buildings on the same property with the same landlord). Our neighbor told us that the landlord had said that water was included in the rent.
We contacted our landlord requesting a new water meter be installed for the other house, and included an excel spreadsheet showing how much we had paid in water usage over the last few years.
Our landlord responded saying that he knew the water meter was set up that way, and that our rent was low for the area because we were paying for the neighbor's water. He apologized if no one had explained this to us. However -- none of my roommates knew about this, nor is it specified in any of our leasing agreements. Our landlord said that he could install a new meter, but would have to increase our rent accordingly with the cost of the installation. He also said nothing about the amount of extra utilities we've been paying for years (which comes to easily thousands of dollars).
I know installing a meter isn't cheap (probably around $1,000), but my roommates and I feel tricked. No one ever told us we were paying utilities for someone else. Our landlord has been great to deal with over the last couple years and I don't want to make the landlord-tenant relationship adversarial. The house is awesome, and while the rent isn't especially cheap, it's a reasonable amount. What options do we have?
p.s. I should add that we're in Texas, which has some of the least renter-friendly tenant protection laws. I don't know what legal options we might have.
Submitted April 09, 2017 at 12:40AM by nedarb http://ift.tt/2odU1ej
