Roasted Renters

When my best friend and I graduated from college, we were on the lookout for an apartment or home to rent. We made our specifications list, and eventually found a place in a great area with off street parking AND utilities included! The monthly rate was slightly higher than others we had viewed, but the price on the others did not make up for the utility costs we would have had to pay. We signed for our first year's lease thinking we were getting a deal, and we were. However, it took a certain incident for us to realize why utilities were included.

Everything was going swimmingly in spring and through part of early summer. Our landlords had an office in the apartment section next to ours. The apartment behind ours was vacant, and the person living on the opposite side of our landlords' office was rarely home. Our apartment was the smallest unit, but also the most economical. We had the freedom to do the majority of what we wanted to do; walk around the property, pick apples from the tree out back, and have friends over without issue. Then, it happened; our thermostat reading would not go below 84 degrees Fahrenheit despite it being set at 74° and outside it was over 90°.

We decided to sweat it out until they were in the office on Monday. When our landlord heard, he waived his hand dismissively and said "just turn the thermostat down a couple of degrees." I did and waited for the next day, sweating all the while. It didn't work. My roommate urged me to talk to him again. We weren't paying our rent in a timely and efficient manner just to melt in a hot box.

I brought it up once more only to receive the same response. I again took his advice, and our thermostat went down to 83°. Thinking I made progress (and wanting to avoid discussing it with he and my roommate again), I made a swift decision to make things tolerable; I turned the thermostat down several degrees. Finally, the temperature in our apartment had reach 78° on Wednesday. It wasn't the usual 72°-74° we liked, but it was better and my roommate thanked me.

On Thursday, we were both home when a heating and cooling vehicle pulled in the apartment's parking lot. That was when I saw our landlord's wife come out of their office wearing a sweater, scarf, and winter garb. She was heading toward our apartment. I heard a knock and my roommate shot me a look as he answered the door. As for me, I took my place beside the thermostat and quickly pressed the buttons up to return the settings to 74°.

We were both in plain sight when she asked us, "How is the temperature over here? We are FREEZING over there, and the temperature gauge in our office is reading in the fifties!"

My roommate stated that we had been having the opposite issue which had been mentioned to them by me at least twice, and she stepped inside.

"Oh, yes! It is hot over here! I'm going to take a look at your thermostat!" she replied.

I stood suspiciously with my hands behind my back and rocking forward and back on my toes until after she left.

My roommate turned to me and said, "How low did you have that thermostat set?"

Looking out the window to make sure she was gone, I replied, "Oh, just fifty-four degrees", and whistled.

"What?! Why would you think that was a good idea?!" he freaked.

"Well, I told them about the issue twice and was given the same answer each time. I figured if it made any progress, I would just turn it down even more and hope that it worked."

He smacked his head with his hand.

I made "shh" sign with my fingers as our landlord's wife headed back to our apartment. She notified us that the issue would be fixed by the end of the day, but that our apartment might be hot for the remainder of the day.

We told her not to worry; we would just go for a walk or something until later.

After she left, I continued our conversation with a grin, "At least they'll be fixing it now that it has inconvenienced them inside their office. They weren't concerned about our problem, but since it now affects them they'll get it fixed."

"That does not mean it is a good thing!" he shouted then sighed, "You could have blown the whole unit up pulling a stunt like that."

"Hey the problem is fixed and thankfully that didn't happen. I'd call that a win, right? Also, that claim she made about what a deal we were getting because she sees how many utilities we use on a monthly basis is totally bogus." I winked.

I watched as my statement hit him and he considered it for a moment.

"Their utilities are tied in with ours! They can't rent our apartment and charge us utilities because they can't separate the utilities their office uses from the ones our apartment uses." he concluded.

"Exactly!" I cheered before chuckling, "It is kind of funny that I froze our landlords out of their office."

"Yeah, but you're prohibited from touching the thermostat from now on!" he teased.