High utility bills in MA.

He's home a lot! More and more. I think he stays here all day. He's here when I leave and here when I come home. It's annoying. The house is cold when I leave and when I cpome back. He's flabergasted at the bills which he has to share, I doubt he'd turn up the heat.

Another concern: the water is icy cold first thing in the morning. I'm worrying about burst pipes now. It's not my responsibility, but it'd be an inconvenience if they did burst. The combo of high heat and freezy pipes makes the bad insulation theory the most likely one.

Now that I think about it, I think he does stay here ALL day. He then leaves when I get home for a couple hours. Works well for him - he has all day alone. The other housemate gets home around the same time I do, but I usually get here first. I used to have 2-30 minutes alone at the house after work, now I have none.

Oooh, that would drive me batty. Especially in such a small apartment.

(Glad he's not the prime suspect in the Great Heating Bill Mystery, though.)

It's not us, it can't be. We keep the heat low, I can tell the house has been cold all day. It has to be something in the structure of the house.

When I first got my place, I didn't lock all the windows, so the tops were slightly open. The first cold month, the heating bill was ridiculous. Think it was over $400.

I've checked that. Will do it again, just in case.

$503.36 this month. Oof.

I'm probably just not paying enough attention, but are we talking oil, gas, propane, electric - a mix? I know I locked in the price of $2.39 per gallon for fuel oil this past fall. It takes approximately 600 gallons of fuel oil to heat (plus hot water) my 1400 sq. ft house for 1 year. My electric bill, which has nothing to do with my heat, but does include my cooking stove, is about $50 per month. When I moved into my house 15 years ago, oil was 98 cents per gallon and it cost me about $35 per month in electric.

littlek, It sounds to me that you live in an old inefficient building. In NY landlords can get grants and low interest loans to make a building more energy efficient, maybe you could see if the same is true in MA.

It's gas heat and hot water.

Welllll, I just walked around and while most windows were closed and locked, some windows were closed, but not locked. The later are now locked. The land lady is offering 200 bucks off our rent to make this month's bill reasonable. I'm thinking it shouldn't be more than 150.

Slappy, how much were your unlocked windows open?

$150 would still be pretty cheap today I think....my windows were open on the top an inch or two. If you just looked at them, you couldn't see gaps, but once pushed up it was obvious. Just stupidity from me to not think of it at the time.

littlek, am I to understand that you share an upstairs apartment with several people?

Would you not prefer to live alone or is that not an option in Boston?

Is Boston as expensive to live in as New York City?

I have so many questions.

And I thought my $ 200 was a lot

I don't how what rents are in NYC but right now rents in her area are running $1500/month for a 1 bedroom apartment. A 3 bedroom is around $2200/month and up. Her's is a pretty nice place in a good location so it might command a premium - I dunno.

Thanks, fishin. You are always there for me and I love you like a brother.

You can easily get $1000 for a basement one-bedroom in a worse town than where she lives....where she's at they're pretty stupid expensive. Living anywhere in downtown, you're easily over $2K for a one bedroom.

Yep agreeing with Slappy and Fishin.... this place is $2100 for 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. It's considered a great deal. If I moved to a suburb of Boston, took a small apt over a garage or in a basement, it'd cost more than what I pay now for rent AND I'd have to pay all of the utilities. Someday I'll buy a place, hopefully.

Slappy, I meant that I think the landlady should take $150 off our rent for compensation, not $200. I decided to make it easiest and do $180 off the rent, $60 for each of us. That makes $180, bringing the gas bill down to below $300.

She says she will write this into lease contracts in the future. She'll be up front and tell tenants that the gas bills are too high and that she's willing to compensate. Meanwhile, I'm feeling guilty for the wastefulness of it.

littlek, you should rent a room from Slappy. I am sure you two would
get along just fine and he definitely should give you an a2k discount.

Isn't that a good idea?

Hell yea. I'm going to have 3 rooms available in a big renovated condo for $600/month for 3/1. Kitchen has granite counters, new stainless appliances, big dining room + living room, 1 & 1/2 bath, free washer/dryer, basement storage. Arrogant Bastard Ale on tap is about 250 feet away.

I think your landlady is being pretty generous. Unless something's wrong with the heating system, or the windows are very old, she doesn't have to do that. Or maybe she knows she has to do some updating.

edit: double posted because it's slow

There you go!! Slappy, your place is in Boston itself too, isn't it?

littlek, your share is 700 Dollar/month now plus utilities, so with Slappy
as landlord you could trade in a barter system. Do his laundry and prepare some meals and get a rent reduction.