Dear Mr Landlord, I never expected it to happen to me---

I'm at school picking up my kids and having a quick teacher's conference. The cellphone rings. It's my tenant from a block away. They just moved in last month. They're an older couple, not the sharpest knives in the drawer, but they had lived together for about five years before they had a fight and broke up, and now they had gotten back together after realizing they couldn't make it on their own, and so I took a chance on them, given the time of year and their initiative and all that, despite his alcoholism and their collective IQ.

The GV voicemail transcription is along the lines of, "I got my gas bill in today and it was $91 and I am concerned it's so high. Do I have a gas leak?"

Anyhow, I'm in conference, so I finish up what I'm doing, load the kids in the truck, and drive the block over to the rental. The Atmos truck (gas company) is also pulling up.

We walk up to the house together. The tenant is sitting there with no shirt on. It's in the 40*'s, and the house is set to 71*.

The Atmos guy says, "Well, I pressure-tested the line, but there's no gas leak."

And he's like, "I've lived in this town for 12 years, and I've never had such a high gas bill! It's never been over $40!"

And I have also lived here for 12 years, and know what gas bills run, depending on the time of year. (Hint: they're like an electric bill in the winter, and down to $15-$25 in the summer if you're not heating.) "What kind of heat did you use in the past? Gas or electric? Did you have central heat & air in the past? And it's December and 40-something degrees outside. If you're going to sit around with no shirt on, yeah, I can see how your heating bill would be a little high."

And he's like, "I don't see how my shirt has anything to do with this. If I had known the utilities were so expensive, we wouldn't have rented this place."

The Atmos guy says, "I've turned the gas back on."

And I'm like, "Uh.... You turned the gas off?!?! Have you re-lit the hot water heater?" Because the igniter has been a little finicky, and I have to have my plumbers light it for me... because replacing the igniter is about as expensive as replacing the hwh.

Of course, the Atmos guy tries and can't get it re-lit. "I'm not allowed to disassemble the assembly," he said. "You'll have to call your plumbers to do it."

I'm incredibly fortunate, because my guys, who are booked solid through the New Year, are currently a few blocks away at my current renovation pressure-testing a gas line. (It didn't hold. It needs replacement, of course.) So I'm like, "Okay."

And my tenant sez, "That's not going to cost me anything, is it?"

And I'm like, "It very well might. I'll find out when they send me the bill. I'll go talk to them right now to get the hot water turned back on before they go home for dinner."

"That's just not right... That's just not right..."

He calls me a few minutes later to confirm that someone will be by to re-light his hot water heater. I tell him yes. He apologizes very nicely, saying that he had panicked, and if he had known I was coming over, he would have put a shirt on. I suspect the point entirely missed him. He said that now he knows what to expect, they'll make the bills work. I tell him please don't shut off my utilities in the future, because they can be expensive to re-activate. He reassures me about his gratitude, and Merry Christmas, and they'll stay off my radar until next year...

Ooo, I was upset... :)

That's exactly why I won't ever pay for heat. My family was looking at a mobile home park, 26 old mobile homes, low rent, and every tenant in there, no exceptions, had the heat set so high I could barely breathe. They were all barefoot and wearing the skimpiest summer clothing.

Eery one of them was complaining about their heat bill, usually while they were standing there with the door wide open with snow on the ground.

The fun part was the gas guy trying not to laugh out loud when I pointed out how he was not dressed for the weather. :P

If the building was upgraded to net zero where super insulated there would be heat loss where there would no need for a heating system. Installing a demand water heater would be over $1,000 dollars where the heat loss of a direct fired hot water heater is 7 to 12 degrees per hour when no water is being used. A indirect hot water tank can only be used with a gas boiler where there is immersion coil where the heat loss is less then one degree per hour in standby. So in the end would the tenant be willing to pay $100 to $300 more per month to live in a rental unit that has lower natural gas consumption or less electrical power consumption. I wear long under wear along using a comforters on the bed at night where the heat is turned a few degrees to 18 degrees Celsius instead of 20 degrees normal room temperature. There is a demand water heater which only fires when there is hot water demand which has no standing pilot along with no standing pilot on the natural gas stove or natural gas clothes dryer.

Same thing here.

In the summer they want the a.c. at 60.

Tenants don't keep the heat high in winter and a/c low in summer just for giggles.

My work had the heat set to 73-74, and guess what, the humidity is 15-20%. In the summer, the a/c is set to about the same temp, but the humidity is 50-55%. Yeah, it feels a lot colder in the winter.

So the reason tenants who aren't paying the bills keep jacking up the heat is because lower humidity makes the temperature feel cooler.

"Is the combined IQ higher than the gas bill? "

I have to say that, most low income (not all of them) are definitely low IQ and they breed like rats.. Imagine the percent of low IQ people in this country in 5,10, 20 years.. The gov't need to stop the welfare or else the low IQ will run the country one day once they become majority.

Like Palio, I too was doing the voices...

@Don... the gas bill was normal for heating this time of year.

I don't know how he managed to heat a place all winter for under $40/month for the last 12 years, as he claimed--- if that's the case, sign me up!!! --but there was nothing unusual about his gas bill.

But he saw the gas bill, panicked, reported a nonexistent gas leak, and was sitting around with no shirt on a day I'm standing there wearing a sweater, an overcoat, and gloves while talking to him. (OK, so the gloves were actually in my pocket at the time, but they had been on for most of the day.) So the contrast was very... picturesque. :) I wasn't criticizing him for having a 71* thermostat-- but for not making the connection between the weather, how you dress for the weather, the cost of utilities, and how you can keep the cost of utilities-for-the-whole-house down somewhat by proper management of the air that's directly next to your body.