Are all utilities included? That could be the only justification but tbh fuck them, it's no different than a hermit and nobody penalizes them or requires a time out of the house
Edit for visibility. Commenter below me said 900 Trails End Dr, Walnut Creek.
Except, this is not enforceable.
It would have to be via utilities and RUBS calculations, which are regulated pretty tightly.
The max for an application fee is also $66 in CA. And must be refundable, as they must go in the order received and refund those they did not consider. You can’t “consider” 5+ people at once.
It is what it sounds like. It's supposed to cover the background check, but they often charge way too much and pocket the money. Illegally, in some states.
Not only that but often they just pocket the application fee and then just reject people. Consider if they get even 20 people applying each month at 75 bucks that’s 1500 for doing nothing. And then they can report their loss of 1 months rent for the empty property for a tax break. It’s all a huge scam and I hate it.
Don't you think they'd want the income from the unit being rented more than the small amount of reduced taxes? I don't think you understand taxes and deductions.
Credit check and background check fee. The problem is landlords will accept 10 applications and do maybe 2 background checks and credit checks and pocket the rest.
Uh, no. You can find tons of places cheaper than this in the city. If its getting rented in Walnut Creek, its a person commuting in who is scared of living in SF.
How does that even work though? If 5 people apply in a short window, you can only go 1 at a time. Do you just automatically reject anyone else who applies right after someone else does? Or what does considering 5 people at once even mean?
Dishonest landlords used to collect application fees from everyone applying and keep them all even if they only actually screened one applicant and leased to them.
In Wisconsin the last time I was looking for apartments I spent a little over $200 in application fees. I would be approved but they would just take the first person on the list and was SOL on getting that fee back. The range was anywhere from 20-75 dollars which is also ridiculous that there is that kind of range.
If you go more than one at a time, you open yourself up to discrimination lawsuits. If someone qualifies based on income and other objective means, why do you need to go to four, five, six other people? You can offer the apartment to a few, whoever accepts it first gets it.
As opposed to “processing” 15 applicants and pocketing $1,000.
I don't work from home but if a neighbor told me the landlord was doing this, I'd have the AC on the lowest setting when not home, showering running nonstop at the hottest setting, and leave all the lights/electronics on when at work. If laundry was included that dryer would be going 24/7 😂
This is probably the reason, however, I don't see how they can justify that reason if you have kids at home or something. Whether it's the kids or a SAHP.
My 16 year old sister does online school and then is always home during summer. So would they charge extra then too? They aren't technically working from home...
I guarantee the average gamer has more electricity use then a WFH it's just a weird policy like most people who WFH use a laptop how much more power are you really using
Do stay at home parents count as well? Unemployed people?
I tripped the breaker to my office because I was running both my gaming PCs while my air conditioner was on yesterday. I'd say your assessment is spot on. lol
This is not to justify the expense but I can tell you that there was a noticable increase in my utility bills when started WFH full time.
I also had other expenses go up as well due to full time work from home. A big one being the amount of snacky food I bought, and I found my water bill went up some as well. Now none of it close to 200 a month and a hell of a lot less than what my gas expenses were per month.
Literally about $5-10 a month, depending on elec costs, for most productivity type work. It's not remotely close to $200 a month. They expect us to not be able to do 3rd grade math
I guess, in theory, in addition to higher energy usage, one could argue there’s more “wear & tear” on the floors/rugs, countertops, appliances, etc. the more time a person spends at home.
If electricity is included in rent. I guarantee most people are leaving the AC on all day. Probably at 65. Along with lights and the TV. Regardless of whether or not they are at home.
My AC unit runs consistently, and I work outside my house. You can't adjust heat pumps up and down rapidly because it costs more money and the house never cools properly.
Most people don't have AC in the bay, and electricity is almost never included in rent. It's pretty common for water and garbage to be included though, but that's nowhere near and extra 200 a month for staying home.
That completely depends on where in the bay. Grew up in Solano county. Regularly hits 100 degrees. Everyone has AC. Live in Berkeley. Lots of people do not have AC, including me. Currently house-sitting in Contra Costa. It got up to 95 or so yesterday. I definitely had the AC going but it usually cools off at night so you can open the windows and not run the AC overnight or until around midmorning if you're comfortable at mid 70s. My grandparents lived in Napa county and just opened the house at night, used a ceiling fan, and didn't have AC but I would guess that's pretty unusual because it does get hot AF. My grandparents are long gone and we installed it about 10 years ago because no one enjoys hanging out when the house is in the 80s.
Your ac should always be set for the same temp anyway. There's no reason to change it when you leave, it's just going to need more power to cool down later.
This is actually depends on how long you are gone. If you are gone for the whole work day you should adjust it higher. If you can pre cool the house before you get for comfort that would be good. But there is no reason to keep your AC at 72 when you aren't there. You can put it up to 78-80 When you are home for like 4 hours or more
Running a high end computer and multiple monitors requires energy along with the additional AC.
I don’t agree with it because as stated previously, someone who has a kid (or non working individual) who games during the day would have the same effect.
The better approach is to have each unit cover their own utilities and then the landlord does NOT need to be in their business.
Except the energy required to run a high end computer and an additional monitor or two is negligible. I'm saying this in response to the landlord as I've met one who did not like that I WFH. Glad I avoided that landlord and OP should too because this isn't going to be the only dumb policy
For the modelling and graphic design maybe, but given the options of remote access, in-office work, and contracting someone who owns their own equipment I'm betting it's still very rare.
Your other examples just need regular corporate craptops.
I work in electrical engineering. My desktop (at home) was worth $5000 before everything skyrocketed.
What large multi billion dollar company wouldn’t let you do that honestly? You don’t bring it back when you quit or get fired they can sue your ass. All the systems are inventoried by IT.
If you pay your own utilities, it makes sense to set your programmable thermostat to raise the AC temp during the day, when the family is out of the house at work or school, and lower it shortly before the first person comes home. Likewise, lower the heat during the winter during the day, warm up before family gets home.
It’s been so long since I’ve had to do this, but there is information available online about how to balance your settings so that, for example in wintertime, you’re not using up more energy to heat up the walls and floors that got cold when the thermostat was set too low, than if you maintained a slightly warmer steady temperature.
Well technically they run more when you’re home. Your body is producing heat that has to be offset, in addition to probably running computers, monitors, etc that also produce additional heat. Still silly though
what? are they building a mini data center at home to work with? when I used to do wfh, I had a laptop. At one point one of those mini cpu things and two monitors and that was it. Not a gaming computer with 4 state of the art monitors
Yes the same person would use more if they were home
more. What about the single woman who just burns one candle and uses her MacBook Air with no AC compared to the guy who works 10 hours a day out of the house but then cranks AC, uses high end gaming rig, etc etc?
Simply using “hours home” does not tell you anything about someone’s average utility usage.
That is a different argument and comparing to completely different typs of people but say that same guy who works out from house for 10 hours a day now is working from home. He is not going to be cranking the AC down during for those extra 10 hours a day and during the hottest part of the day using even more power.
Again not a good justification. It ia bad one.
I can confirm when I started working form home my utility bills had a noticable increase
Eh, not a meaningfully different amount. LED lights for a few extra hours per day and a computer being idle vs doing work tasks is generally pretty comparable on the scale of utility bills.
Baking a loaf of bread in an electric oven each week would be more of an impact on utility bills than working from home.
I can't tell if you're defending this position or not but while you're not wrong, it's still insane to charge for this. As someone else said, you'd have every right to be a hermit and never leave the house. So how tf can anyone justify or defend this. You pay for a place, you get to use it 24/7 however you want.
I’m not defending anything, I’m responding to what this could be a justification in the landlords mind. This would be a no go for me, but i could understand it if WFH = air conditioning, water, cooking, potential internet streaming issues, idk etc and utilities were bundled. As others stated tho, doesn’t make sense why WFH would be charged more than retired/unemployed when all result in an at home tenant. No clue.
I dont think they are defending the person at all. The just are providing the BS reason the landlord is using and is still factually correct. I know when I started WFH my utlity bills had a very noticiable increase
so are you really saying that when you are home you dont have more lights one, and you dont have the eletronics on and dont have the AC cranked down lower?
I genuinely don’t think they get that. The point I said was obvious is that people that are home use more of every utility than people that are not home. People that are home consume electricity, water, generate waste, even WiFi bandwidth if communal and that is very obvious. This person is debating that I’m somehow defending the landlord in the original post, whereas I was pointing out an obvious fact not justifying the actions of the landlord.
No. I didn’t say you are defending the landlord, I said you are confused by the same stupid reasoning the landlord had… even still here, while replying to my exact explanation, even though in your other response you appeared to understand it already.
Does paste taste as good today as it did when you were in elementary school? The part that is obvious is that someone that is home consumes more in electricity, water, waste, and even internet bandwidth than someone that is not home. I’m not talking about retirees, or sabbatical, or any of the other fringe strawmen you are referring to. Home, versus not home. OBVIOUSLY someone that is home consumes more than someone that is not home. Period. Unless, that is, you stay home to sit in a dark corner with no lights on, don’t pee, don’t poop, or at least don’t flush, don’t drink water, don’t open the fridge, keep your phone off, and sit still, you are going to consume more utilities than someone that is not home. That is the likely justification of the landlord in the initial post. I am not defending it, I am not agreeing with it, I am stating that is likely the justification given the extremely obvious comparison between someone home and someone not home. Thanks for the discussion!
No, I’m not saying that. I’m saying that someone could be home 24 hours a day and still use less electricity than someone who is home 16 hours a day- so a BLANKET policy for all renters charging them more for their hours home rather than their ACTUAL usage makes precisely ZERO sense.
And if someone, for example, was a wealthy trust fund kid or inheritor of some kind? Proves they have oodles of cash in the bank but they're not working from home?
Yeah but what are the "extra" costs exactly? People still heat/cool their homes when they are at work (obviously different settings than when home). Modern LED lights cost a pittance to run. You may pour a few more glasses of water a day. But you're insane to argue that results in an operating cost of +$200/mo.
Interesting, but if that is the reason, then a child who plays games or someone who goes out to work but leaves a lot of stuff downloading on their computer uses much more than someone who works from home doing crafts like painting and crocheting, baking or a pet-sitter.
WiFi is NOT an included utility. I’ve rented several places that include the utilities in the monthly rent price. And I’ve had to pay for my own WiFi at every one of them.
Utilities includes electricity, gas, water, and trash disposal. Also, WiFi is almost always a fixed fee and doesn’t vary depending on usage. So it wouldn’t even make sense to charge additional “WiFi costs” for someone working at home versus an office.
Yeah they can't penalize someone who is disabled and therefore doesn't work or a retiree or a stay-at-home-parent so why someone working from home? Sounds like a FHA violation.
People run their AC, at least to some amount, when they aren't at home. That uses roughly an order of magnitude more energy than running a PC at the low average energy usage typically required for productivity functions. 8 hours of those types of functions amounts to about $0.15-30 per day, depending on region. I'm not paying someone 15-50x the actual costs for the additional demand I'm creating, because someone is arrogant enough to think I can't do 3rd grade math to figure out they're price gouging.
This is the same order as some trash employers getting upset that you're charging your phone at work. It literally costs ~$2 to charge a phone for an entire year, nice job spending more $ worth of our time being upset about it, you math-illiterate toddler
I'm pretty certain California has laws requiring employers to pay some amount of utility compensation to their remote employees that live in California. I imagine that's why this charge exists (not defending it though!)
I don't get a cent for the extra utilities I use but I pay my own bills. Even if it's a law doubt anyone will start shit since you didn't have to waste hours commuting, overpaying for shit food, etc
I could kind of understand this. On of my friends moved into another friends apartment temporarily and was working remote, their electric bill doubled just from him being there all the time with the TV and computer on all day.
As a person who is permanently disabled and is home all day long watching TV, playing video games, cooking food, cleaning, just generally using electrical equipment… $200 is insane to ask from somebody who’s home all day. It depends on the size of the unit and how many electronics are being used, but my electric bill was only $75 last month. And that’s with the air conditioning going all day. Different areas have different rates, but we’re talking in excess of expected use. So the landlord is willing to pay the electric bill as long as you’re not home all day and now it’s your responsibility to pay way more if you are home? That’s just nonsense.
The only other justification I could think of, maybe, is if it were some elderly person who is renting a room in their home. Having someone there all day , using the kitchen and being in the common areas, would be very different than just having them there at night, so maybe that's something they're trying to discourage with the extra rent.
I just don't see any other reason why a landlord would even care if it didn't affect them personally.
My utilities total including Internet don't total 200 euros. Why would I pay 200 euros more for staying home? Will the greedlord provide coffee and snacks?
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u/ToastSpangler 1h ago
Are all utilities included? That could be the only justification but tbh fuck them, it's no different than a hermit and nobody penalizes them or requires a time out of the house