Battle with roommate over the heat.....

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A few things....
First, OP, you work from home every single day? What the hell kind of work do you do? You may need to job search if your income dropped that much.

Second, whomever said $250 for heat, you must be in a house. I am in a 900 sq ft apartment and never got anywhere near that. In addition, I don't run it much, and use blankets.

Third, a space heater could be against the lease? I seriously doubt it. Again, I am in an apartment and that is not against the lease at all. The drawback is your electric bill will go up using a space heater.

Op here- I'm not sure why my job matters but yes, I work from home every day. I was a nanny for 10 years and then started my own nanny agency. I was making $900/week (net) as a nanny 52 weeks a year and when I stopped doing that to start my own business, I took a pay cut at first as I got things started and wasn't netting $900 week with that. However now that I'm over a year into my business, I do make more. But again, not sure why it's so boggling to you that I work from home full time, a lot of people do that.

I agree with OP. Lots of people work full-time from home. Don't know why that's so baffling to the PP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A few things....
First, OP, you work from home every single day? What the hell kind of work do you do? You may need to job search if your income dropped that much.

Second, whomever said $250 for heat, you must be in a house. I am in a 900 sq ft apartment and never got anywhere near that. In addition, I don't run it much, and use blankets.

Third, a space heater could be against the lease? I seriously doubt it. Again, I am in an apartment and that is not against the lease at all. The drawback is your electric bill will go up using a space heater.

Op here- I'm not sure why my job matters but yes, I work from home every day. I was a nanny for 10 years and then started my own nanny agency. I was making $900/week (net) as a nanny 52 weeks a year and when I stopped doing that to start my own business, I took a pay cut at first as I got things started and wasn't netting $900 week with that. However now that I'm over a year into my business, I do make more. But again, not sure why it's so boggling to you that I work from home full time, a lot of people do that.

There are not many jobs out there that allow for working from home EVERY SINGLE DAY, but operating a nanny business certainly fits the bill.

I agree with OP. Lots of people work full-time from home. Don't know why that's so baffling to the PP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tell her she needs to move out and you will find a new roommate because she clearly can't afford to live where you are living if five or ten extra dollars a month for reasonable heat expenses is too much for her. You aren't talking about keeping temps at 75, 66-68 is very reasonable.

She's probably also a PITA on other expenses. Don't accommodate her ridiculousness.

+1. I had a roommate like this in college who would try to put duct tape over the thermostat in the winter. She complained about being soooo broke, habing student loans, etc. Then why was she living in a nice luxury student apartment with pool, etc.

If she can't pay basic utilities, she needs to move elsewhere. It's not like you're asking her to chip in on HBO or something optional. And I disagree you should pay more because you're hearing the house while working from home. It's so much more energy efficient to maintain a reasonable temp like 66-68 degrees than to have the temp drop every morning and then work over time to heat back up in the evenings.

+100. I'm in my late 20s and had a roommate like this too in a shared house in DC just out of college. I threw down with her when she started emailing us about charging visiting friends and guests a fee to cover for the extra high heating bills. Even though she would be out of town on work trips and the guest had no direct effect on her at all...and she would ask them for money AFTER they arrived instead of agreeing in advance. Yeah bitch, like having one more person under our roof is gonna send Pepco and the water bill from 120 to 250 a month.

On the other hand, she would let her parents crash in our group house while they visited her from the Midwest. Parents....LIVING in a group house/treating the space like their own home for 5-10 days at a time and cooking, filling our fridge with their groceries and not sharing. Yet she refused to let them pay a dime for to us even though they used utilities

Tell her to learn the meaning of compromise or find another place to live ASAP. Then again too many people our age are so coddled they can't comprehend being wrong, respecting normal boundaries before it becomes a problem after the fact or knowing what compromise even looks like.

Good luck!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
1. She is crazy, and you should try to move her out because this will not be last problem you have with her.

2. You should offer to pay a bit more for January and February, since you work there during the day and need the heat turned to a more reasonable temp.

3. But for the long-term, see 1.!

This. People who are this neurotic and imbalanced usually have a ton of other baggage and emotional issues that end up creeping into roommate life whether it's just two of you or a shared house. Usually they'll try to make their beefs everyone else's problem. I used to live with someone like this person and one other very passive roommate who refused to have a backbone about anything. No one has a right to just exist in a house or apartment if they're just going to shit on their roomies and refuse to take any ownership of their actions. It was infuriating, and the day I got my own studio was one of the happiest days of my young adult life.

-Signed a DC group house alum who has had to ask someone to leave because she couldn't take no for an answer, pay bills appropriately or understand the meaning of "no couples".

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So is it your condo? Or you're the primary on the lease?

Op here- I've lived here since June 2012. I had a roommate (good friend) until June 2014. Didn't end up getting another roommate until end of March 2015 as I was fine paying the rent and everything myself for 9 months but once I switched to working from home, my income went down a little bit so decided to get a new roommate. I'm currently the only one on the lease and she technically sublets the room from me.

Then you're in charge.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Most leases stipulate 65 minimum because of frozen pipes

Yeah right!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'd tell her that it's got to be warmer in the house or your leaving. No way I'd be that uncomfortable, how was she in the summer with the AC?

Op here- I don't think we had any issues with the AC. I think we both agreed to have it on 70 during the day and 67 at night. It's just the heat that's causing issues.

Those are ridiculously cold temperatures for AC. I think 75-78 is a more common AC setting. Amazingly, you actually seem to have found a roommate who agrees to such cold settings year round.

In the end, you'll have to put your foot down and tell her the temp is going to come up a few degrees. The bigger problem is that she is changing roommates or moving somewhere else in June and she will never find another roommate to agree to those temperatures.

78 is a common AC setting?

Yes, frugal people (my parents) keep it at 78 in the summer, but I think that's too warm. DH makes me keep ours at 76 but sometimes I bump it down to 75 when he's not looking. Any less than that and even I'm cold. We keep the winter temp at 70 but I'd rather it was at 72.

[Anonymous]

Space heater.