Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with utilities

Water shut off due to non-payment by landlord. What are my rights?

slavlin — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 17:18:28 -0800

My landlord pays the water bill for my apartment complex. Today the water was shut off in the middle of the day. When I called the water company, they said that the complex was shut off due to non-payment. Are there any legal requirements about notice or use of rental fees by the property management? I live in Tennessee. I have been living in this complex for about 9 years. Though it has had it's problems, it is spacious and fairly cheap, plus I hate moving. I do pay an additional fee for water (along with rent).

Also, I checked the Better Business Bureau and there is only one complaint on file and there was no response.

Finally, the property management is Starwood Property Management (Lease says Starwood Management LLC.) There is no address on the lease other than our complex. The management company is based out of New York, but the managers here have been told they are not allowed to give me the phone number for the main property office. Would they be required to do that, since they technically do have an office here that I can go to?

Elegant solution or jury-rigged joke?

longsleeves — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 10:49:57 -0800

Is it common to remove a utility pole but leave a small chunk of it still in use twenty feet up? This is all that's left of the utility pole that used to grace the corner my house sits on. Public Works re-did the street several months ago and the project included new sidewalks. The corner was reengineered while the workers and all the heavy equipment were tearing up the old and installing the new, the utility pole was removed and not replaced. At first we thought this slice of old pole would soon be replaced with either a new pole or at least a new connector or anchoring thingy, yet here it remains, looking a bit like it belongs on a joke picture blog. I've never seen this anywhere else.

It certainly appears secure enough but it sure looks a little weird. I've even heard passersby comment that it looks like a birthday cake caught in some wires. Will it be safe in the long term? Have you ever seen this? I'm also curious if there is electric power transmission involved.

It's not all Ben Franklyn and ENRON is it?

Anonymous — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 08:56:36 -0800

Tell me all you know about electricity markets. I am looking to learn as much as possible about electricity markets (specifically the UK/Europe) for an interview that I have coming up. I understand the technical aspects of the job that I am going for but I am a bit unsure about some of the Political Economic Social Technological (PEST) factors that are having an effect on the industry at the moment and I would like to have greater insight. There seems to be a whole raft of information about the long-term energy supply issues that the world will face in the next 30-50 years but there is not so much on how that will impact on the next 6 months to 5 years.

What is the strategy for utilties at the moment? Are there any regulations on the horizon that will impact on these companies? Is there anything else that I should consider?

*It's anon because a few people at my current employment know my username here*

Thanks

My landlord's a jerk, but how big of a jerk?

Beardman — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 11:32:29 -0800

Does my landlord have to give me advance notice if he's going to shut down the building's water for a few hours? This is in Ontario. This morning at 9:00 AM, some plumbers turned off the building's water. It wasn't an emergency, it was a repair that they had been scheduled to make. They told me the landlord was going to tell us. The first we heard of it was when the plumber knocked on the door and said "We're shutting it off now."

Obviously it's rude not to inform your tenants, and the landlord knows this too--he usually lets us know. However, I want to know how much notice he is actually obligated to give us, according to the Residential Tenancies Act, in which water is considered a vital service. I asked on Yahoo Answers, and someone replied that the RTC doesn't apply. Is that true? Is my landlord really not obligated to tell me when he turns off my water supply in a non-emergency situation? I would have assumed 12 or 24 hours was required! I want to know so that I can specify how much notice I want in the future.

Windows utility to cause all movable windows to be represented in the taskbar?

odinsdream — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 09:02:44 -0800

Is there a Windows utility that will add buttons to the taskbar for windows that normally don't get represented there? The problem:

Open a folder. You see the taskbar button representing that folder in the taskbar. Right-click the folder and choose Properties. The properties window does not get added to the taskbar, so you can lose it behind other windows and the only way to get it back is to shuffle until you can see it.

Is there a utility that will globally cause any movable windows to be represented on the taskbar?

What tool/program/script can I use to manipulate files based on a list of filenames?

tinamonster — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 19:39:03 -0800

I have a text file containing a list of image filenames and I'd like to be able to point at a folder and have it select, move or label based on the list of filenames. Is there software, script or tool that makes automating this possible? I read this question which is similar but couldn't get the solutions to work since my list is an exact filename rather than a keyword and I didn't know enough about the commands being used to adjust them.

I can also easily manipulate the list to be an exact list of paths if necessary.

As a stop-gap I am using Extensis Portfolio and tagging a custom field to move and manipulate. This limits me to one set of files rather than any file in a select folder and it also takes a very long time to catalog large numbers of files.

If there is a potential solution that has limitation please call them out. I may, from time to time, want this to work on 60k files but most days it will be only a few thousand. Your help is much appreciated.

Can landlords make a profit from utilities payments?

Anonymous — Tue, 12 May 2009 08:50:30 -0800

In Washington State, can a landlord legally make a profit off of a business tenant's utility payments? I own a business in Washington State. We've been in one space for several years and are currently negotiating our lease option.

The landlords had not previously mentioned any increase in our utilities bill until after they agreed (at our request, due to the economy) to not raise our rent for the next year.

When they sent us the new agreement, however, they now claimed that our utilities payments (water and electricity only) were going up 25%.

We suspect that this increase may be retalitory in nature, which leads me to wonder: can they charge us more for utilities than those utilities actually cost them, and then pocket the rest? Or, legally, should our cost be the actual cost?

Offline Blog Reader?

tesseract420 — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 09:04:46 -0800

Offline blog reader? I've backed up my blog into an XML file. I'd like to read it offline. Open Office has XML support but this is not an efficient solution. There are online solutions--importing the xml file into a new blog, for example--but I'd just like to read while offline from the xml file. Is there a program that will permit this?

[do] leave the light on, baby

meghosaurus — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 16:24:46 -0800

We've been in our apartment for six months this February. We have yet to receive an electric bill. The electricity for our apartment was shut off when we moved in. We called to have it restarted, and all was well for the first month. After 6 weeks without a bill, I called the electric company (we're in Michigan, fwiw). They said not to worry, we should be receiving our bill soon. Every month, I've called to report we still haven't received anything. I do have an electronic account for online bill payment, and the balance has remained $0.00 the entire duration of our stay.

Each time I call the electric company, I get transferred several times, and each time hear some version of "Huh. That's strange. It says here you've called multiple times, but it doesn't look like anyone's followed up. I don't know why you haven't received a bill, but you should next month." Each time, a month comes and goes with no bill.

At this point, I'm not sure what else to do. Our landlord hasn't received a bill either, and we still have power, even though we haven't paid a penny. I've tried to be very proactive with the electric company, but really don't know what else to do if they refuse to send us a bill. Is there some statute of limitations on utilities? If our account still shows a zero balance when we move out, could a collections agency come after us a few years down the road? What can I do to make this right, aside from continuing to log useless phone calls each month?

How do you split stuff up when one person's not around?

bluefly — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 11:47:26 -0800

Should I ask my roommate to pay her share of the utilities when she was gone all month? My roommate is in China for the entire month. We usually split the bills 50/50 (electricity, internet, cable). She paid her rent for January, so that's not a problem. On the one hand, I can see that she shouldn't have to pay utilities because she's not around. On the other hand, neither of us is around very much some months, and I feel like in the end, it's all a wash. The internet and cable bills are a flat rate every month anyway no matter how much we use. What do other people do? Thanks.

I can't afford this.

PFL — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 19:00:04 -0800

Why does my electric furnace use twice as much energy as my neighbor's? I live in a townhome development and we have the same floor plan. My electric bill for the past two months has been $400 each month and I can't figure out why. I live a roughly 1900 sq ft townhome that is new; construction finished around October 2008. My neighbor's electric bill was about $200 over the last month. The only relevant difference I can think of is that I have the end unit in our row and he doesn't. I keep the heat set at 66 degrees in the house and the average temperature in my city was 41 degrees in December, for what it's worth.

I have been checking my meter since I got my latest bill and I am on pace for another $400 bill this month. Through switching breakers off and the process of elimination, I determined that the heater is the issue. I averaged about 5 kwh per hour of electric usage over the last couple months, compared to 1kwh per hour when I shut off the heat or cut the breaker. There was one hour where the heater was running full-time to re-heat the house after cutting the heat off and that used 16kwh for that hour.

My neighbor is using about 2.5 kwh per hour on his last bill compared to my 5kwh.

My heater isn't blowing all the time, but when it does it uses an insane amount of power.

Is my end unit the culprit? I have a hard time imagining that it would cause me to double my heating costs. Does it make sense that my heating unit would draw more power than it should when it's running, but no power when it's not?

Oh, and a final data point. I was not the first person to move in to my section of townhomes, and the other end unit was occupied well before mine. My electric meter is reading more than twice is high than everyone else's. If it was an increased bill due to having the end unit, the other end unit would have a reading like mine, wouldn't it?

Heat is expensive!

backseatpilot — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 19:50:12 -0800

My heating bill is about twice as much as my downstairs neighbors'. What's going on, and what can I do to mitigate the cost? I live in a multifamily house on the second floor. My gas bill was $240 last month, twice that of my downstairs neighbors. Even with the differences in the apartments (enumerated below), this seems ridiculous. I left a message for the landlord to talk about it, but I would like to know two things - what should I ask her to look at, and what can I do to the apartment to insulate it better?

Some data points:

-Replacement windows were installed a year or two before I moved in, but they're very drafty. I can feel a breeze while sitting on the couch.
-There are lots of doors to the apartment. Two doors to the unheated stairway (one is sealed but not insulated around the jamb), one to the front balcony, and one in the kitchen to the (also unheated) back staircase. None of them seem terribly well insulated. Downstairs only has two doors, one main entrance and a door to the backyard.
-Downstairs only uses one of the two bedrooms. They've turned off the radiator to the guest room.
-Downstairs also has doors in the doorways that go to the back half of the apartment, which they keep closed. The kitchen is in the back and is unheated. The previous tenants in my place removed the doors and hardware.
-The heat is natural gas with radiators (unsure what type, but they do hiss and spit a lot).
-Downstairs also replaced their thermostat with a programmable model. I only have the manual round dial type that requires me to remember to turn the heat down.
-I keep the heat at about 68 when I'm in the apartment and 60-ish at night and when I go to work.
-Both apartments use the same model boiler and same basic heating setup.
-There is a third apartment above mine that uses electric baseboard heaters (I think). There's no boiler for upstairs.
-The apartment is two bedrooms, maybe 700-800 square feet. Lots of windows - 6 plus two doors in the living room alone.

With all that, does it seem there's enough of a difference between the two apartments to warrant such a huge discrepancy in heating costs? Is it reasonable to ask the landlord to seal up the windows? Could the thermostat be broken? How can I seal the doors to the apartment?

Also, I realize this is paranoid but is it at all possible that the upstairs apartment is leeching heat from my boiler? How can I tell if that's the case?

This is my first winter in this apartment, and the first place I haven't had heat included in the rent, so I really have no idea what I should be paying on my gas bill.

Future Comcast Customer Looking For A Deal

shew — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 19:24:34 -0800

Looking for the best deal on Comcast! I'm moving into a new house in the Denver Metro area tomorrow and I'm looking to get Comcast service. I need television service and high speed internet. I'm willing to commit to up to a year of service. Where can I get the best deal/discounts/perks for signing up as a new customer? I don't -want- to get the voice service (home LAN line) but I'm willing to consider if it sweetens the deal. Mostly I use my cellphone and that works, so I'm open to ideas. I'm also ready to call -right now- and secure the service so any deals only applying to November are fair game.

Where can I find information about the US electricity market?

theexpgen — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 12:43:16 -0800

I would like to learn more about electricity markets, electrical infrastructure, utilities, transmission systems, generation technologies, applicable regulations, etc. Where can I find up-to-date and comprehensive information on these topics? One good book that covers it all would be ideal.

I'm not afraid of technical information, but I'd prefer something that's mostly conceptual in nature.

In short, I'm looking for a primer on today's electricity system. How does it work? Who owns and operates it? How is it regulated? What's good about it? What's bad about it? Where is it headed?

Need some help with a lying roommate.

sacrifix — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 14:37:47 -0800

My new roommate (of 2 weeks) lied to me about why the gas was turned off. I'm subletting, and I'm getting out. Do I have any option for recourse? I moved in to a new place on the first of this month. I met the roommate through Craigslist. She seemed to be personable (a bit of a chatty Cathy, but oh well) and responsible. This perception changed drastically yesterday.

When I went over on the first to pay my first month's rent and get the keys, she let me know that the water heater had been working intermittently, and that the landlord's son would be over within a few days to fix it. Apparently he never came by. I dealt with this for a week or so, because my parents live a few blocks away so it's not difficult for me to walk over there in the morning to take a shower. She told me a few times that she had talked to the landlord's son and to PG&E (the gas company) and that it would be resolved soon. Come to find out that the gas issue also involves the heat and the stove, so I'm unable to sleep without a space heater and many blankets, and I can only cook in the microwave.

I had my dad come over and take a look at everything, to see if we could get the pilot light lit on the heater, on the water heater, etc. No dice.

Fast forward to this last Saturday (the 8th), where I put my foot down and let her know that there's no way that I would have moved in as quickly as I did (I had 17 days of overlap with my previous house) if I had known about this issue. She explained that she was very sorry, and would raise hell with the landlord and her son. (The reason why the landlord's son is involved is because the landlord barely speaks English) She got on the phone with PG&E and scheduled the first available appointment to have someone come out and determine where the problem was.

This appointment ended up being yesterday. I took the day off of work to be at home to meet the PG&E guy, and the landlord's son. I hung around the house, played some video games, did some organizing of my new room, etc. About 3:30 I started to get concerned and called PG&E to see about the status of the technician, and when I should expect him to come. The person on the phone let me know that not only was there no technician scheduled to come, but there is no active account at my address. I asked if I could set up an account and was told that due to non-payment of the previous account, I would need to fax a new lease agreement to set up new service.

So the situation is that I'm 2 weeks into my new place, and there is no heat, hot water or a working stove. I have been lied to by my roommate (I was in the room with her when she was supposedly making the appointment with PG&E, I wonder who she was actually talking to). I cannot set up a new account with PG&E because since I am subletting I don't have a lease agreement to send them. I have signed no paperwork with the landlord or with my roommate. I have paid a $500 deposit and first months rent (which, conveniently, just cleared today).

I called my roommate yesterday after I got off of the phone with PG&E. She didn't answer (she was at work), I left a message explaining the situation and asking her for an explanation. She did not call back. I called back later on in the evening, she didn't answer, I didn't leave a message. I called her back today (she is not working today), and got no answer. I left her another message. I sent her a text message asking her to please respond to my voicemails. I called again, she didn't answer, I didn't leave a message.

What do I do now? In the last voicemail I left, I told her I would be moving out by the first. I get the feeling that I have been scammed. Is there anything that I can do to ensure that I get my deposit back? Also, am I able to take her to small claims court for lying to me about the gas situation (and therefore coercing me to move into a non-livable living situation)?

I apologize for the long rambling nature of this question, but I'm pretty heated (or not) right now and not making much sense.

Renters and Telephones

small_ruminant — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 13:40:14 -0800

Telephone lines: whose obligation? Renting in an unincorporated area Can anyone point me to the rules for renters in unincorporated areas? Are they just out of luck?

Someone rented the top half of a house and now it turns out the phones don't work. The landlord says the tenants need to pay the phone companies to put the lines in. Phone companies have always told me that this was the landlord's responsibility.

The landlord is also doing renovations to the bottom half of the house that he said would be finished by the end of August, but it's clear there's no way that will be the case. In the meantime he and his workers are tromping right though the top half of the house without even knocking.

Moving ALL.THAT.STUFF! again would be horrifying but is that their best bet?

This is in California, in the Bay Area.

Looking for an anti-duplicate file finder.

cosmac — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 17:14:12 -0800

Can someone suggest a Windows utility to search for non-duplicated files on different hard drives? I've got multiple hard drives with tens of thousands of files on them. Many are duplicates, but not necessarily in the same directories. I need to identify the files that are on one drive, but not on the other, regardless of their location in the directory tree. I've found plenty of comparison utilities, but they all seem to take into account the file path. There are also duplicate finders that work well and ignore the path, but I need an "non-duplicate" finder. I've done this before by using a duplicate file finder (Clonespy), deleting the duplicates. The files left are the ones I want. However, I really would rather not modify the original disks. Thanks!

Estimating utilities in a college town

laskagirl — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 21:21:57 -0800

Help us to estimate utilities? Howdy, folks. A relative of mine will soon be attending Humboldt in Arcata. I've been to college myself, but it was on the East Coast, and it was ten years ago, so I'm scratching my head trying to estimate utilities for budgeting purposes. Are any of you familiar with the area? She's going to be sharing a two-room studio. So the two renters would be splitting the utilities for that space. Have Googled and come up unlucky. Thanks so much for any help you can provide.

Why don't electric companies take credit cards?

OTA — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 06:10:21 -0800

Why do electric utilities either not take credit cards for payment or charge ridiculously large surcharges ($5) to do so? I've gotten into the habit of paying most of my bills via credit cards due to the cash back/skymiles. Every single company (phone/cable/etc) gladly take them, EXCEPT the power company. They send you over to some 3rd party who wants to charge $5 for the privilege of paying your bill with plastic. I did a quick check of the major power companies I'm aware of in Florida and all of them have similar services, although most charge $3-$4 instead of the $5 my local power company wants.

I'm fully aware of merchant fees & such, but find it odd that only power companies in this state seem to do this.

How much does it cost to live in Marina Del Rey (or LA in general)

FireStyle — Sun, 25 May 2008 11:51:35 -0800

I will be moving to Marina Del Rey from NY soon. I've been a New Yorker all my life, and don't know much about west coast economics. I do come from the 10th most expensive-to-live-in county in the country, so I'm sure I won't be terribly ruffled by the prices. I was hoping I could get some insight on how much it typically costs for: Electric, Gas and Heat, Water, Cable/Net, and any other utilties I may have missed. Thanks!

Can the electricity company charge a deposit regardless of credit?

stevechemist — Fri, 16 May 2008 10:03:58 -0800

I am new to renting and I just called the power company and they said that I have to pay a deposit no mater what my credit is. Is this normal practice? I am a college student at Penn State University and I am renting a townhouse in the area. When I called the power company (Allegheny Power) to create an account, they told me that no matter what my credit, I still have to pay a deposit equal to an estimated two months of electricity.

Their monthly estimate for a 3 bedroom, 3.5 bath townhouse is $160/month which I know for a fact is high because the previous tenant said their highest bill was $70/month. This made my deposit $320.

My questions to the hive-mind are is this a normal practice? Are they allowed to do that without even taking into account your credit?

Please explain gas company jargon before I explode

jeanmari — Mon, 12 May 2008 12:33:49 -0800

I'm helping out a small not-for-profit with their financials and cost-containment. I've received a letter from our local natural gas provider which is confusing and (of course) it has been impossible to find anyone at the company who can give me a straight answer. So, it is up to me to decide, should we take their offer or not when it comes to signing a contract for gas rates? Here is the letter sent to us from Integrys:

VARIABLE PRICE--The variable price is *Index + $.06 per therm for 12 months beginning with your July meter read. The variable price allows you to float with the market while retaining the flexibility of locking in at a fixed price at any time during this agreement. The variable price can change monthly based on current market conditions.

Your contract will automatically renew for a one-year period under the variable price if you do not respond to this letter. If you do not respond by May 15th, your effective price starting July 2008 will be the variable price of Index* + $.06 therm for 12 months. As always, you acknowledge that you are responsible for "pass through charges".

The Variable price is the 'avg' price published by Natural Gas Intelligence, in its Biweekly Survey, for the applicable month, under 'Midwest', for 'Chicago citygate' any successor index ("Index"), converted to a price per therm or +$.06 per therm of gas you use.

Um, okay. What the hell does that mean? And what are my other options? This is one of the worst letters written to a customer that I have ever read (and I used to administer VERY complicated benefit plans for a living).

Help!

Right Click Glory

matthelm — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 15:26:35 -0800

For example say I have a quicktime file open and I want to open the folder where the file resides...is there a program that will do this...? ...Or say I am in photoshop and I go to the open folder and I see a bunch of .jpgs and I would like to select on of these and right click it to bring me the option of "open folder where file resides"....any ideas of how I can find a software that does this?....

How to deal with good person who is a bad roommate

vegsister — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 09:55:46 -0800

I bought a house a few months ago, shortly thereafter asked a friend and former housemate to move in with me, and am now feeling almost constantly enraged by behaviors that didn't bother me so much when I didn't own the house we shared. In fairness to myself, I think some of the behaviors are genuinely unfortunate--but I need some advice on what are reasonable limitations and how to stop my own complete transformation into a raging, miserable Nazi. My roommate leaves unwashed dishes around, and seldom lifts a broom or takes out the trash or recycling. She leaves a space heater on almost constantly so she can wear tank tops inside in the winter, and the utilities--which I made the mistake of including in her monthly rent--have doubled. She brought home a new boyfriend a week after she'd moved in, and he was over 3-4 nights a week until she dumped him two weeks later and the next day brought home a new one. I didn't much like the first boyfriend, and certainly wasn't happy with sharing a roof with him so frequently. When I bought a house, I wasn't planning on sharing it with random 20-something guys I'd never met, who my roommate has no qualms about leaving in the house when she goes off to work (the boyfriends have been unemployed). I know a renter needs to be comfortable having guests and it's none of my business whom she dates, but I feel uncomfortable in my own house. Buying it was of course a major investment and no small emotional and financial feat, and in exchange for all that I feel I should at least be able to enjoy some sense of sanctuary and control.

On the plus side, my roommate loves and tolerates my dogs (now three of them) and my boyfriend (who is over 3-5 nights a week) and is almost unfailingly relaxed and friendly. I never had a talk with her about my expectations and comforts before she moved in; when we lived in a group house before she wasn't a serial dater and seemed to keep things clean. Also, now that the house is my own I feel more protective of it and my own expectations have risen.

From looking at my finances I think I can also afford not to have a roommate; my boyfriend also plans to move in this fall at which point I'd like to have the house to ourselves. My problem is that since my roommate is a friend and I really like her as a person--she is 10 years younger than me but in many ways I really enjoy her personality and who she is--I can't bring myself to raise any difficult issues with her. Since she never says anything awkward or uncomfortable to me, I can't seem to ask her to use the space heater less, do her dishes, or take out the trash. Not to mention say anything about the ever-changing flux of arrogant young guys.

I know I am within my rights as the property owner to say all these things, and to have her move out whenever I choose as long as I give her ample notice--I am simply wondering what is the decent way to do it. Are my concerns at all reasonable? What's a good way to raise them with a decent, kind, if very lazy, friend and roommate? Should I tell her as soon as possible that I'll want her to move out by the fall, so she doesn't get used to the idea of staying there for years? Should I take the passive aggressive way out and make it so uncomfortable for her to be there that she leaves on her own volition? Yikes!

Fountains of Trouble

TahitiBlue — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 16:19:48 -0800

I recently went out of town for 10 days and had a sprinkler valve fail, and flow for about a week. I just got the water bill 257,200 gallons in water usage (good thing we had a lot of rain this year in Austin) and around a $2000.00 bill not including wastewater. So, I'm going to call the city to see if they'll cut me some slack. Does anyone know if there are any magic words to say that would make the city of Austin ( experience with other municipal utilities would be helpful, I'm sure a lot of them have similar policies) wave some of all of thier charges?