sharing houses and selfish people

melancholly

first of all, i apologise for the rant, but i am so mad right now!! :mad::mad::mad:

i'm sharing a rented house with 4 other people and it's on 3 floors. we have two boilers, one which does the ground and first floor, the other one doing the top floor.

it's august, it's quite warm (it's certainly not cold anyway!) - just went up to get bath mats to wash and found that the upstairs boiler is set for the central heating to be on for 6 hours a day!! :eek::eek::eek: we turned all the central heating off in april.

there's only one person living on that floor at the moment, and they only stay 3 nights a week or so - so they have single handedly decided to raise the gas bill a huge amount, by effectively heating only their room when they're out most of the time! we've always checked with the whole house before increasing or decreasing the time the heating is on for, as we only have one meter so have to split the bill. we also never have it on 6 hours a day anyway - as we can't afford to heat all 3 floors that long, so it's just so selfish!! ARGH!

i've checked the meter and this must have been a recent change as the damage isn't huge - used the same number of units in 2 months as we did in 3 months last year. i'm so glad i noticed, as if this went on continuously for the next month or so, it'd cost a fortune. it's the principle anyway..... going to have to calm down and tread carefully later, suggesting that we don't just put on heating whenever any one person (who incidentally, never wears jumpers :mad:) feels cold.

i'm scraping every penny i have to try and save up a deposit for a house so i don't have to rent and share........ why are some people so inconsiderate

/rant

Parallel_Universe

What a selfish person you live with! I would be so angry as well - take a very deep breath before you talk to him/her!

melancholly

i'm better now - i just don't understand - it isn't that cold, they're never here to benefit and if we are putting the heating on, we do the same amount of time for all the floors so that all the bedrooms get heated.

this person is leaving next month, so i'm thinking we can adjust the bill slightly so that they pay their excess (going on what was used in the same period last year) and they never need to see the actual amount.

i'm so relieved that they won't be here over winter!

kingkano

Not wishing to argue! But since they are only there 3 days a week is it at all possible they didnt realise the heating was on (or didnt realise it was their responsibility to turn it down/off)?? They might even have just confused the hot water controls and the heating controls??? If you adjusted it back in April then it takes some of the guesswork out of it.....

I agree if they did it deliberately I'd be mad as heck and make sure they paid for it though.

melancholly

it was completely off, and it has mysteriously been put on the timer - they're the only person on that floor so I can't think that the other 2 people on my floor will have done it. the hot water just comes on automatically when you put the hot tap on so unless you're adjusting the central heating timer, there's no reason to touch it!!

our regular plumber put in new radiators about 3 weeks ago on that floor and it wasn't on a timer then - he also mentioned to me today (measuring for radiators for my floor - hurrah) that someone on the top floor was complaining how cold they were when he was last here, so he showed her how the boiler works..... i am making an assumption that it was her, but i don't think i'm making too many great leaps!

IHateDida

I used to share houses with some right energy wasters too - its not fair and I can't really understand why some people don't consider the other bill payers. One girl used to leave the fan heater on in her bedroom all day whilst she was at work apparently regularly "forgetting" to switch it off. In another house another used to have the heating on in the summer as her parents did whilst she was living at home and she couldn't adjust to the drop in temperature!!!!! (and then she used to walk around the house in a vest top!)

Just keep thinking forward to the day when you will have your own place, it will come...and its worth waiting for!

liz545

I feel your pain - one of the real gripes in shared housing is people who can't work out that it's not always necessary to have the heating on all the time! I take it you've turned it back off again, but it's worth making sure that all the radiators on that floor are also turned off (except maybe the one in their bedroom - but turn it to a minimal setting) so even if they do turn the heating back on again, it'll only heat their room and not all the hallways/communal spaces. With any luck, they probably won't even notice!

Lavendyr

Gah, how annoying I lived with someone once who worked from home and had the heating on all day, every day, up above 20 degrees constantly, in the winter, and wandered around the house in a vest top. I don't think she'd heard of wooly jumpers

david29dpo

Its a sign of the times iam afraid, chose your friends carefully!

clutton_2

maybe a "house meeting" will help your new tenant when you get your next house-sharer in, so that everyone knows what is expected from day one.

melancholly

clutton wrote: »

maybe a "house meeting" will help your new tenant when you get your next house-sharer in, so that everyone knows what is expected from day one.

yeah - we do them regularly for new people - been renting for a while now in houseshares, so have seen the light on that front!! i guess we didn't tell this girl not to put the heating on whenever she felt like it, in the summer, when she's not in the house..... i would never have thought i needed to! oh well, live and learn - you don't want to scare new people or patronise them, but apparently we should err even more on the side of caution!!