Paying more of the electricity bill?

RoisinDove

Posting on behalf of my friend who has a bit of an issue.

She lives in a houseshare in Dublin with 4 guys. She moved in around 6 months ago and doesn't see much of them as she spends a lot of time out and tends to hang out in her room rather than the common areas (they are all friends from back home). So they're not really mates, but have a fairly good housemate relationship with no major problems.

An issue has arisen now because they received a bill for electricity over the winter period which was much higher than expected and they think my friend should pay a higher proportion of it than them. The reasons being a) that she tends to stay in the house at weekends while they go home and b) that she sometimes has the heating on in the morning before she starts work around lunchtime. She thinks they are being unfair because a) she does often go home at the weekend, or to her boyfriend's, or on weekend breaks. It's not like she sits in the house all day long on Sat and Sun - even when she does stay in Dublin for the weekend, she tends to be out for the whole day, b) she told them before she moved in that she worked 'irregular' hours compared to them and they were fine with it. She leaves the house around 12pm and gets back around 10.30pm. Her argument is that they get home at 6pm every night and have the heating on all evening and she isn't there to benefit from that. At most, she'd put the heating on for about an hour in the mornings if it was really, really cold while she was showering/having breakfast, but only for a period of a few weeks. She also hardly ever cooks whereas the rest of the house cook every night.

Are they trying to take advantage and make her pay more than she should or do they have a point at all?

lukesmom

No no don't think its fair to ask her to pay more, it should be split equally between them all.

D3PO

not fair to ask bills are split. this nonsense of your in the hosue more is just that.

split between all housemates no discussion

RoisinDove

lukesmom wrote: »

No no don't think its fair to ask her to pay more, it should be split equally between them all.

That's what I thought. Their reasoning is that it cost more than it would have if she hadn't been there, so they think she's stingy and unreasonable for not paying more. Her reasoning is that it's not her fault they're on different schedules and hence the heating is on slightly more, and it's definitely not her problem if they all go home at the weekend. It's impossible to prove who spent X amount of time in the house, which is why I think they're being ridiculous.

Mrs OBumble

Yeah, but if she wasn't there they'd be splitting it four ways instead of five, so it would be higher per head

Seriously, even for a bigger than expected bill, what's the size of the difference, and what sort of different split do they expect.

If they want to go down that route - at a minimum, they need to split the daily charge equally. After that, what share of the per unit charge do they expect her to pay? Maybe 1/4th, and then they pay the other 3/4 equally between them? Do the math, and see how much difference it really makes!

D3PO

whats next she should pay more rent coz there there only 5 nights a week.

its a stupid argument their makig they need to grow up and get into the real world