Utility bill dispute between housemate and I

ste_coxy

fimonkey wrote: »

Are you on a water meter then? Water bills, electricity and gas have all gone up incredibly over the past year purely due to price increases, not extra useage. Are you factoring these price increases into your arguement as you would certainly both be paying more than last year for example even uf useage stayed the same.

We have a similar problem with a housemate who likes to leave stuff on standby and have the heating on. We decided to just deal with it as she's a lovely housemate otherwise - but I am going to buy an energy monitor which will tell us how much we're using. They're about £30 from B&Q. I will place this in a prominent place and see if she gets the hint. .. Probably not an option for you now if your housemate is working again.

Yeah meter for water, we were previously paying £18 a month and this has been the case for the past year but the new one came through after we'd given meter readings and due to this they've estimated we'd need to pay £36 a month instead - a 50% increase is not likely to have incurred due to the cost of living.

ste_coxy

BitterAndTwisted wrote: »

I was quite sympathetic to your situation until you chose to open up a discussion about this by text. This is not the sort of thing that's going to be settled amicably by doing that. What were you thinking?

I quite agree that your flatmate should be paying the majority of the shortfall but if you'd decided to text me about it in the first instance I'd be quite hostile about it. I think it's very rude and quite cowardly as well.

I actually emailed and whilst I would normally agree it is the cowards way, I actually leave at 8am for work and don't get back into the flat until 10.30pm, by which stage my housemate has gone to bed. The cowardice is more on her part than mine as I asked her last night if we could talk about it but she said she wasn't well and that's why I emailed her as I knew this would continue and the problem would still be there.

ste_coxy

J_i_m wrote: »

One thing to understand is that, things are never going to be "fair" you need to be realistic. I doubt your flat mate asked to lose their job, that must have been a bitter pill to swallow, and hence I'd imagine she'd have been bringing in much less money as a result of that, that's simply being realistic. And if the house is being used more, then the utility is going to cost more.

And I'm sorry, but if someone can't bring in the money because they're unemployed then you're going to have to exercise a little bit of realistic common sense, after all you can't exactly expect them to go sit on a bench in the street all day, simply to keep your utility bills down. (I know you didn't say this, I'm just using it as a hypothetical example).

It's not nice that you'd have been paying higher bills and shouldering much of that burden yourself, but realistically, if one part of the household lost their income through little fault of their own, then that was always going to happen, it's about being realistic. You never know, the same could happen to you, and your flatmate could then end up shoring up your end of the deficit. Swings and round a bouts.

If it were a case of them doing nothing to get back into work, then you'd have a good enough motive to feel a bit hard done by. But since she's back in work that's not the case.

You just need to sit down and go through the figures sensibly together and be realistic.

I do agree with all of the above and I am someone who normally is realistic about things however, there have been too many things where I have been "realistic" or simply let things lie with her just to keep the peace, such as her not bothering to get temporary work and holding off going to interviews as she liked the sound of another job and then didn't end up getting it, using up food or spending money in the joint account on things just for her (i.e. alcohol) etc etc.

I have not brought these up because I am an easy going person and don't want termoil as my life is stressful enough as it is but I do think this is something I need to make a point of as otherwise it will continue and she will think she can carry on doing it.

As I mentioned, she is the first to say anything when she think she is being unfairly done towards - when I mentioned about home working she clearly wasn't happy about it as she said how the bills would go up, so I didn't bother persuing it.

BitterAndTwisted

Actually, I completely disagree that a flat or house-mate should be expected to shoulder a larger burden of the bills because the other person is or was jobless. These two people are not entwined in a relationship: they are not a couple.

I didn't have someone to share the burden of my winter heating-bills so, as I was jobless, I didn't have the heating on. The OP's house-mate should have been more much aware of the consequences than they seem to have been

kford224

Sharing is a nightmare and something I would never do again. The problem with had was with our housemate's girlfriend. She would often stay for weekends and during the week but neither she or our houemate contributed any extra. He also didn't agree that he should have to tell us (out of courtesy) when she was coming down :mad:

I do agree that it is not fair for you to pay more when it is her that has made the bills go up. I think you should explain that you aren't happy with paying more because it is clearly down to her being in the house all day when she was off. You don't have to do this in a rude way, just say it in a "I am watching my pennies enough as it is and as much as I would like to help, I cannot afford to pay more" kinda way

It's like when you go for group meal with a group of friends and watch what you order to keep it cheap. No wine, only two courses instead of three...etc. and then when the bill arrives some bright spark says "lets just divide it up equally...". Err, no?!

Svenena

How much more water gets used from your housemate being at home more than you? They go to the toilet and wash their hands maybe four times during the day. Presumably you both each have only one (or maybe two) showers a day - I doubt it's made that much difference. More likely its due to price rises in utilities.

Electricity could make more of a difference if they've had the TV and/or computer on every day (no lights due to daylight). Have you checked how many more units have actually been used? This could be the basis of your argument, I suppose, and give some concrete figures for arguing your point (as you don't know how much your bill would have risen anyway).

Personally I think it's not worth the hassle of arguing when you've only got 'til August. I also think this is the kind of thing that should have been discussed in advance - eg "since you're going to be at home for x hours a day more than me, I think you should contribute more to the electricity bill", then maybe she'd have been more careful.