When you are renting a property, you are typically responsible for paying the bills while you are there.

What happens if your landlord tries to make you pay the electric bill even after you have moved out?

This renter let her landlord know (in a roundabout way) that she wasn’t going to allow that.

Take a look to see how she handled the situation.

Electric Bill still in our name after we move out? I’ll make sure we’re not charged a cent.

We moved out of an apartment 2 months early (school housing contracts, blegh).

That would be awful.

Since we couldn’t get anyone to move in for only two months, we were on the hook for the 2 months of rent which was a fortune to poor college students.

We were told by the on-site manager (also a poor college student being paid in free rent) that we’d be responsible for the electricity bills in the apartment over the next two months despite already doing our official move-out.

No, they can’t be changed back to the landlord’s name.

Fine. I’ll pay the electric bills, but I’ll make sure they’re zero.

That is one way to deal with it.

So when we left, I turned off all the breakers.

I still had the keys because we were supposed to mail them back to the property owner (at our expense) since I guess he lives far away and only comes in to town at the beginning and end of each semester.

A few days later we realized we had forgotten some items in the bathroom, and since the apartment was on my way to school I decided to swing by and grab them before mailing the keys back.

When I walked in, I was startled to find someone inside.

It was the property owner with a box of tools looking very dirty.

I can’t imagine why they weren’t working.

Apparently the hallway lights weren’t working (and in violation of building safety codes) and he couldn’t figure out why.

The security system also seemed to be non-functional.

It looked like something had tripped all the breakers, he said.

I said yeah, that something was me since the electric bill was still in our name.

He pointed out that not powering the hallway light was a safety concern, and also that having the power off would ruin the refrigerator.

I pointed out that I couldn’t care less about the safety of an apartment I didn’t live in, I already had a signed move-out document saying all the appliances were in good shape.

And also that him being there was technically a landlord violation since we were still paying rent and he hadn’t given us notice that he’d be entering the apartment.

We looked at each other for a few seconds.

I was wondering if I was technically trespassing or not since I had already signed move-out documents.

He regretted that decision.

He was probably thinking about how much time he had wasted for something like 13 cents worth of electricity, and how he couldn’t really stop me from simply dropping by any day after school to turn the breakers off again.

Finally he said he’d take the electric bill out of our name.

I grabbed my loofah, left, and didn’t hear anything about it ever again.

Most importantly, I never paid another cent (except, of course, the two months of rent, but small victories!).

Sometimes it is those small victories that are the most satisfying.

I’m sure the people in the comments had something to say, let’s take a look.

I think they just get musty or moldy.

Yup, the electric company has to take it out of your name.

This landlord should have known that.

Yup, nothing is free.

That’s good to know!

This landlord was shady for many reasons.

She’s lucky she got out when she did.

If you liked that story, check out this post about a group of employees who got together and why working from home was a good financial decision.