All Forum Posts by: John Deyrup

@David Lee Hall, III Can you be more specific on what damage you are seeing. To put the image in context, the bathrooms had drop ceilings installed for some reason in the past, previous to the drop ceiling there was plaster and lathe which was half heartedly removed. The image you are seeing is the ceiling beneath the drop ceiling on the first floor and the blackened wood is where water was dripping from the second floor. Most of the wood that is visible is lathe.

Lesson learned about the detachable shower heads. The wood here was also very soft from the water; can a single event make the wood that soft or is more likely that multiple events caused the wood to rot.

The bathroom in our rental has a cartridge that you push in to change from a shower to a bath, and the shower has a hose that lets you detach it from the wall. My tenant said that she had been putting the shower head on the floor when taking a bath. There was quite a lot of water that leaked in from the bathroom into the floor below. If the water is not currently leaking that means that there is not an issue with a leaky pipe, but that water was flowing down the path of least resistance; i.e. the shower to the floor? Does the fact that the floor leaked mean that something is not caulked correctly or is it not possible for floors in bathrooms to handle a lot of water?

@Pat L. These things are easier to get changed than you would think; especially at the local level. I have seen it happen many times. At the federal level not so much.

Replying on the points:

1. Scaling tier usage based on number of units is how I would assume that the water rates would work. In my area they don't scale based on number of units; I am not sure how common that practice is.

2. I am not sure I see the benefit in offloading the cost of failure to pay on the landlords over utilities. The cost really should not fall on the utility or the landlord, and failure to pay utilities should follow the tenant around, and it does to an extent when the utility bears the cost. If a tenant tries too setup an account with a utility they will be denied unless they pay off the balance, unless the tenant moves out of the utility's service area.

3. I am not sure how utility companies feel about this, but in my state the utilities have been decoupled for gas and electric, but not water. The intended result is that people are able to pay x dollars for utilities so the utilities get that amount and if a utility makes efficiency improvements then they get to keep more of that money. I suspect that this program can be challenging to operate, but the result on efficiency is pretty clear. The utility companies spend a lot of money on programs to encourage energy efficiency. 

There are three issues around water utilities work that don't make that much sense to me. These issues are likely to get much worse due to the lack of investment of in water infrastructure and climate change in the coming years.

1. Tiered schedules treated differently for apartments vs single family homes

2. Billing being tied to a property

3. Lack of incentives around water conservation/efficiency

Tier Schedule:

Water bills in our area are billed on tiered rates based on usage so that apartments will pay the higher tier rate even though there are multiple families living at the location; e.g.

Pricing:

<= 2000 cf / $6 per 100 cf
> 2000 cf / $9 per 100 cf

Two families in separate houses using 2000 cf/month each

House 1: $120: (6 * 2000 / 100)

House 2: $120: (6 * 2000 / 100)

Total Bill Paid: $240

Two families in a multifamily using 2000 cf/month each, are treated as one billing location for usage rates

Unit 1: $120: (6 * 2000 / 100)

Unit 2: $180: (9 * 2000 / 100)

Total Bill Paid: $300

I am not sure what the policy benefit of charging 50% more for people living in apartments/multifamily is; I would assume that it is cheaper for the city to maintain piping to one location vs two locations. Am I missing something about why families living in the multifamily should pay more?

Bills Being Tied to Property:

Utility bills are not tied to a landlords property for gas and electric. What is it about water bills that requires them to be tied to the property owner?

Issues around conservation/efficiency:

I don't think the incentives work properly for any of the utilities. Landlords should be incentivized to increase unit efficiency and tenants should be incentivized to use less resources. With heat and gas the landlord has almost no incentive to increase the efficiency of the units because the tenant pays for all of the utilities. There is an incentive for the tenant to use less energy, but there is only so much they can do without building improvements. With water the tenant has no incentive to use less water, but the landlord has an incentive to make water usage more efficient.

I am not sure what the right solution; it could be cost sharing in utilities, requiring utility usage to be made public so renters can compare rent + utilities, or some other solution. I don't directly bill my tenants based on water usage, but all of my costs are reflected in the rent so both landlords and tenants pay for this.

CTA: Is anyone interested in forming a group to petition state and local governments about this issue. 

I am a landlord in Massachusetts and I need to hold my tenants security deposit in an escrow. I have found several banks willing to do this, so that is not a problem.

My issue is that, I know that every year you are supposed to deliver any interest the account receives to a tenant but the banks I have talked to have said that they don’t let you deliver the interest unless the interest is >$10 which seems unlikely given the interest rate of the escrow account. Are there banks that will deliver the interest for you each year or is there some other work around?