What next?
Yesterday the fine people from the city utilities came out and gave us an energy audit. This is a free service from the city as to make the public power plant more investor/people friendly. Mind you I requested this back in July when things were really bad. But in some defense, that was four hurricanes and a tropical storm ago. For as long as we have lived in this place I had a hunch that there was something up with the a/c (been in this place since May). I mean for a place that is 960 sq ft to have an average $300 utility bill is outrageous (yeah that is like $1500 in the last 6 mos). Last month it finally broke down and we got it fixed which I wrote about earlier. Luckily, the same day it was fixed the city came to read the meter. Hopefully that means we're going to see a lower bill.
Well to get back to the point of the story, the auditor pointed out the obvious: old appliances (17 yrs), bad insulation, and as a twist - a leaky toilet. Seems that this toilet has been leaking for a long time which lead us to have high water/sewer bills but also was a reason that it hid from us. Our bill has a graph feature to show us consumption and cost and there was this steady charge. I figured it was normal. Evidently the auditor was shocked to see numbers that high for only two people living in the house. Weren't we surprised when we realized we overlooked it for so long.
Good news is that we now have proof for the landlord that something is up with the house and it isn't us. Bad news is that on top of the a/c repair he had to take care of last month, the garbage disposal in the sink konked out and the fan in the back office went kaput. We're nervous about how much more to tell the guy before he starts telling us to stop breaking his house. It isn't us, I promise! Oh yeah, we've also got to insulate the water heater in the back so that we're not paying outrageous bills over the winter. Out of all the stuff we've got in the queue to be fixed, the insulation is the least expensive. I don't know what we're going to do. I don't even know how he's going to react when we send him the paper work from the city's audit. I am hoping for a calm understanding but with our luck, he's going to flip out like a ninja. It is wrong that we feel helpless like this and I think I have it all figured out. The guy gives us a great deal on rent and makes us feel bad for complaining about things. Wrong strategy but I think that is what it is. For right now, we're going to do all we can on our own and then deal with telling the landlord about everything later on.
Then we've got the Blazer back which is a new story all together. Might save that one for later.....
Well to get back to the point of the story, the auditor pointed out the obvious: old appliances (17 yrs), bad insulation, and as a twist - a leaky toilet. Seems that this toilet has been leaking for a long time which lead us to have high water/sewer bills but also was a reason that it hid from us. Our bill has a graph feature to show us consumption and cost and there was this steady charge. I figured it was normal. Evidently the auditor was shocked to see numbers that high for only two people living in the house. Weren't we surprised when we realized we overlooked it for so long.
Good news is that we now have proof for the landlord that something is up with the house and it isn't us. Bad news is that on top of the a/c repair he had to take care of last month, the garbage disposal in the sink konked out and the fan in the back office went kaput. We're nervous about how much more to tell the guy before he starts telling us to stop breaking his house. It isn't us, I promise! Oh yeah, we've also got to insulate the water heater in the back so that we're not paying outrageous bills over the winter. Out of all the stuff we've got in the queue to be fixed, the insulation is the least expensive. I don't know what we're going to do. I don't even know how he's going to react when we send him the paper work from the city's audit. I am hoping for a calm understanding but with our luck, he's going to flip out like a ninja. It is wrong that we feel helpless like this and I think I have it all figured out. The guy gives us a great deal on rent and makes us feel bad for complaining about things. Wrong strategy but I think that is what it is. For right now, we're going to do all we can on our own and then deal with telling the landlord about everything later on.
Then we've got the Blazer back which is a new story all together. Might save that one for later.....
Midnite Raven said it at 2:27 PM
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