Family Matters
shanliann
member
Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Rental advice needed...
shanliann
member
Hi Everyone! I'm new to the nest, very fimilar with the knot, needing some advice and thought you all may be able to help. I apoligize if im posting this in the wrong spot!
Husband and I live in a very small town in iowa, in a 2 bedroom apartment. It's not an apartment complex, just 2 builidings, 6 apts each, owned by a local guy.
So we have our Electricty through a company called Alliant. We have our gas through MidAmerican. The ONLY THING that is gas is our heat. So MidAmerican is basically a winter bill.
Since we live on the 2nd floor, and heat rises...we have never used our heat. this is our 3rd winter in the apartment. I know this sounds silly but weve just never gotten "turn the heat on" cold. we did have a small space heater, that we used occasionally in our bedroom but i broke the knob on it and we never replaced it.
So for almost 3 years our MidAmerican bill has come with a balance of 10.10. just to have the line active. annoying and a waste but every month i waste a stamp and send em a check!
So last summer MidAmerican sent us a letter, saying they had noticed the meter read being the same every month and wanting to know if we wanted to continue the service. so i called them and they said it was not nessicary for us to have the line active if we weren't using it and they suggested we switch it off. ok fine.
Well our landlord got a letter from MidAmerican saying we had switched it off and so he called us and left us a voice mail saying that by the winter months, we would need to have it reconnected for heat use, again annoyed, but whatever.
so november of 2011 i called midamerican and had it reconnected. never used it, 10.10 bill every month.
so fast forward to october 2012 midamerican called me, left me a voicemail, they just wanted to make sure the apt was still occupied. ok well clearly if someone is sending you a check every month. the apt is occupied but whatever. so before i could call them back they called the landlord. so he called us and told us that come this winter the heat needed to be used. ok fine this was october who cared about heat.
so again fast forward to today. Midamerican calls me, leaves me voice mail, again they want to know if the apartment is occupied because the meter read is STILL reading 0.
Shortly after I get the voice mail from midamerican, our landlord calls husband. He says that Mid American called him again. and that he is going to start checking with MidAmerican on our usage, and that if we are not using our heat, he will have no chocie but to assume we are using space heaters, and evict us.
I'm so angry right now I'm crying!!!
First of all, can he require us to use our heat? thats about the craziest thing i've ever heard! what if we didn't use electricty?!
Second, how can you say you will evict us, based on assume ing something?
Third, can he call MidAmerican and find out usage?
I'm sorry this is so long but I am so angry right now!!
Re: Rental advice needed...
I'm not a landlord but I'd be concerned if I thought my tenants were using space heaters to exclusively heat their place. A lot of them are really not that safe and if something accidentally fell against it, it could start a fire. There are some that are totally fine (we have an oil filled radiator style one for our unheated basement so there are no exposed coils to ignite anything) but they for the most part can be huge fire hazards.
I also lived in a 2nd floor apartment once upon a time and didn't need to use my heat all that much. You could absolutely show your landlord that the place stays really warm without it, but I don't think that his concern about the situation is unfounded. After all, he is the one who would have to deal with an uninhabitable building if a pipe bursts or the place burns down.