If you’ve just moved into a splendid new apartment, an initial utility bill that knocks your socks off is a bit more than just an unpleasant surprise. It can put a damper on the whole experience and an irreparable dent in your budget as well.
Even when you’re convinced that the bill is unjustified, it can take months to get it straightened out. In the meantime you either pay or the utility is shut off. This is not a pretty picture.
My husband and I were on the flip side of that experience for a time. When we moved back into the city from a home in the suburbs, we chose a large, rambling loft on the Near North Side for its quaint charm, location and spaciousness. Even though we were paying for our own heat, we didn’t bother to check the utility bills before signing the lease. After we moved in, we were surprised to find that our monthly gas bills were running to little more than $5. Of course, we were delighted to find that gas in Chicago was so inexpensive.
We were in for an ugly awakening and it came in the middle of a fantastically cold January, when our heat was shut off for non-payment. Many frantic phone calls later, we discovered that the gas connections in the building had been configured so that we had been paying heating bills for a studio next door, while the tenants in the studio had been receiving-and refusing to pay-the bills for our huge, drafty loft.
The landlord refused to change the hookup, so we solved the problem by switching bills with our neighbors. A few months later, when a tenant below us blew a fuse and our TV went out, we discovered he had been paying a portion of our electric bill. Fortunately for us, there were enough truly weird things about that apartment that we were able to break the lease and move into a more rational building.
Shared experience
We assumed that our experience was unique but apparently it isn’t. As we passed the story around among friends and associates we found that it was not all that uncommon.
Tim Carpenter, executive director of the Metropolitan Tenants Organization, says his organization often fields calls from tenants with complaints about utility bills. “Most of the utility-related calls stem from tenants who are paying for their own heat and pertain to heating bills,” he says, “but we’ve also received calls from people who have discovered they are paying somebody else’s utility bills, usually the landlord’s, for some or all of the common areas of their building.”
He stresses that these snafus are not always deliberate. Problems often appear over the years as older buildings are rehabbed to provide more and smaller, or fewer and larger, rental units without a complementary conversion of the building’s infrastructure, which includes piping and wiring.
In recent years, Carpenter notes, the difficulties have been compounded as more and more landlords make changes to require tenants to pay for their own heat. He estimates that tenants are paying the heating bills in about one in four Chicago rental apartments at the present, with more conversions being made each year.
“Many building owners do their own alterations, without permits/inspections,” he explains, “and they sometimes make mistakes.”
Whether these mistakes are deliberate or accidental, they can create problems for tenants. The time to protect yourself, if you want to avoid future shocks, is when you start looking for an apartment. You need to check out the utility hookups and/or costs before you sign a lease. You want to be sure the unit is correctly metered, that it is wired to accommodate all of your electronic equipment and that you can afford it. You also want to be sure it’s safe.
The bill, please
Carpenter suggests you start your investigation by insisting on seeing gas or electric bills for any unit you’re considering. This is especially true if you’re being asked to pay your own heating bill. He notes that about one-third to one-half of all calls to MTO are about heating bills or heat-related problems.
“After the first winter month, many tenants find they can’t afford those bills,” he says. “What may sound like a bargain rental really isn’t if the heating cost is going to increase the outlay by $75 to $100 a month.”
He points out that landlords are required by the city’s Heating Cost Disclosure Ordinance to show heating bills to prospective tenants and that there are also state laws requiring landlords to produce documentation regarding utility bills when the tenant is paying for heat.
Determining if the utilities are correctly metered can be a little more tricky. However, checking previous bills can provide a clue. If a typical monthly bill seems exorbitantly high, or unrealistically low, there’s probably something wrong and you should ask questions.
Bill Goldberger, electrical contractor and owner of the 75-year-old Acorn Electric Co. in Logan Square, suggests another way to test electrical metering. “Shut off the main circuit breaker to the apartment you’re considering,” he says. “When you do that, the service to that apartment should be shut down without it affecting anything else in the building.” He adds that this test would apply only to two- or three-flat buildings. It would be too difficult to check all the areas and units in a large building.
Safety check
Checking for safety can be even more difficult, since most of a building’s wiring and piping are lurking somewhere out of sight behind the walls and beneath the flooring. You can take some consolation from the fact that because natural gas can be deadly, the gas company monitors its connections very closely. They shut off the gas when an apartment is vacated and turn it on again only after new tenants have moved in, checking all connections and appliances for safety before they do so. Be sure you know where the shutoff valves are for all your gas appliances.
The wiring is anybody’s guess, but if the building is well-maintained in other respects, that’s a good sign. Circuit-breakers rather than fuse boxes, contemporary lighting fixtures and an adequate number of three-prong receptacles are additional indications that the building’s electrical system has been professionally upgraded.
Goldberger says that today’s building code calls for a three-prong (grounded) receptacle every 12 linear feet. “That’s for new construction,” he adds. “They’re not going to enforce it for older buildings but people should check out receptacles to make sure there are enough of them, conveniently located, to avoid the need for running extension cords all over the place.”
BUT WHAT IF YOU’VE ALREADY MOVED IN?
Now that you know what you should do before you sign a lease, what happens if it’s too late? What if you’ve already signed and moved in before discovering that there’s something seriously wrong relating to the utilities?
Is there anything you can do to keep from being stuck in an financially infeasible or dangerous situation for the extent of the lease? Often there is but it’s seldom easy.
Under certain circumstances, you can withhold rent or you can pay for necessary repairs and deduct the cost from your rent. In some instances you may have grounds for breaking the lease. There are many ordinances in Chicago designed to protect tenants but the average tenant, unless he or she has a law degree, is not apt to be familiar with them or to understand their application.
For instance, Tim Carpenter, executive director of the Metropolitan Tenants Organization, notes that a landlord must provide “essential” services, but essential services can be open to interpretation.
As one example, a landlord is expected to provide adequate heat but, if your lease says you’re expected to pay for it, you must do so. Complaining that the bills are higher than you expected, or more than you can afford, won’t cut it.
You may have cause to break a lease rather than continue to pay bills for another unit or a public area but neither the utility companies nor the city have the authority to force a building owner to change the meter hookups, so long as the hookups present no safety threat, utility officials said.
If you feel you’re being ripped off, your best bet is to seek help and there are a number of sources, depending on the problem.
The Metropolitan Tenants Organization operates a tenants’ rights hotline at 312-292-4988. Volunteers will listen to your problem and make suggestions or refer to you another source.
The Chicago Department of Consumer Services, 312-744-9400, is another excellent source of information and referrals.
There are a number of legal aid services available, too, from the Chicago Bar Association, which has a referral service for those who can afford attorney fees, through several free or moderately priced legal aid services. These are all listed under Legal Aid in the Community Services section of the Ameritech PagesPlus Chicago telephone directory.
In addition, Commonwealth Edison Co. has a number of consumer pamphlets that provide information about the company’s services and suggestions about shopping wisely for the most appropriate and satisfactory account, service and equipment. You can order these free materials by calling 1-800-334-7661.
Peoples Gas has free informational materials available at 312-431-4000. However, to report a gas leak, you should call 312-431-7001. Quickly.
