Turning Point

I haven't been pleased with the arrangement my apartment has had for calculating utility bills recently. Apparently, it is the socialist model. They take the lump monthly sum of electricity consumption for the entire property and calculate how much each tenant owes based on the size of one's apartment, not based on actual consumption.

I always make an effort to keep my consumption down, which means I wind up paying for the consumption of a lot of other people. I have accepted it in the past because, based on my personal calculations, even though my costs were higher than they should have been, it wasn't that much or that blatant.

But my most recent experience with the landlord was my turning point.

When I went in to pay my rent and my utilities on Saturday, I had not received my utility bill. The delivery of that bill has been sloppy the last few months, never arriving in a timely fashion.

I had to ask what my utility bill was. It was $107 last month (which covered the month of August) — which is a bit high for an apartment as tiny as mine. The latest utility bill (which covered the month of September) was more than 38% higher than the previous month's bill — but I have photographic evidence on this blog that my consumption went down nearly 29% during the same time period.

Question: How can you justify charging a tenant 38% more when that tenant's consumption went down 29%? Answer: You can't.

I've told all this to several people, all of whom know about the existence of this blog.

My lease expires at the end of January. Things need to change around here.