You may remember me mentioning a tornado that went through my town a while back, that left us without electricity for five days. Then a few weeks later the hot water heater broke and we were without hot water for six days.
Back when all that happened, I said something along the lines of “Well we are paying them to provide us with hot water, so we should get a reduced amount of rent this month, right?”. I was mostly joking, but it sparked a discussion and it didn’t seem so crazy that they might give us some kind of a discount even if it was just 20.00 off or something.
Well today my roommate called the apartment manager to ask them to send someone up to look at our dishwasher that smelled awful and was smoking. He brought up the loss of hot water and electricity, and asked if we could get a discount on rent this month because of that. I was a bit surprised that he seriously asked for a discount, but I was more surprised at the apartment managers response. She said “Those are not necessity, they are luxuries. If something went wrong on our end that caused a loss of a necessity, then we’d give you a discount but seems how hot water and electricity are luxuries we can’t provide anyone with a discount.”
Really? We’re living in 2011 and electricity and hot water are luxuries? I mean, don’t get me wrong. We didn’t truly suffer and we definitely managed. But I did boil a TON of hot water just so that we could bathe and wash dishes. We did have to drive 45 minutes away to my mother in laws house, to deliver the items from our fridge and freezer, so that they wouldn’t go bad during those five days that we had no electricity. We were lucky that she had room in her fridge or freezer, because we had just gotten groceries the day prior to losing electricity, and of course we had food left in there from prior grocery trips so we easily could have lost 200.00 in food (mainly meat) if it had spoiled.
What do you think? If you owned the apartment complex would you feel obligated to provide some type of discount?
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Hi there! I am Emily Evert, the owner of Emily Reviews. I am 28 and live in a small town in Michigan with my boyfriend Ryan and our two pugs. I have a large family and I adore my nieces and nephews. I love reading memoirs, and learning about child development and psychology. I love watching The Game of Thrones, Teen Mom, Sister Wives and Veep. I like listening to Jason Isbell, John Prine, and other alt-country or Americana music. I created Emily Reviews as a creative outlet to share my life and the products that I love with others.
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Thats crazy! I would feel very obligated to at least do something! I’m so sorry you had to go through that! In my eyes.. Those things are necessities! Especially for someone like me or you.. We run blogs, and it’s a necessity to have electricity to do our jobs!
If the loss of electricity was the fault of the apartment management, it would be their responsibility. If it was due to downed trees and power lines, it really isn’t their fault. If the hot water heater broke and they were responsible for fixing it, you should be compensated for the days without it. It may depend on how your lease is written.
I find it interesting that they do not consider electricity a necessity. In this day and age it most certainly is. Hot water may be a convenience, but it is one that most of us expect to have. I would be interested in knowing what they feel is a necessity. It sounds like it may be walls, windows, and doors only.