From the Daily News:Electricity bills were distributed to tenants in about 1,300 Parker Towers apartments late last month after they lost a legal battle to stop management from submetering the complex.
Tenants said the Jack Parker Corp. was installing individual meters inside their Queens Blvd. apartments without explaining who was responsible for their upkeep. Electricity had always been included in the monthly rent.
[Sharon Eisenberg's] bill was close to $200 for three months of electricity, and she fears the bill will only get higher when she turns on her air conditioners.
But management hasn't offered her any discounts on her rent.
They did, however, send out notices last week stating that, depending on their leases, not all market-rate tenants will be required to pay the power bills.
This has only added to the confusion at the complex.
The company did not return repeated calls seeking comment.
Photo by Ann Forcier
13 comments:
They might want to see if they can get a group rate on compact fluorescent bulbs.Time to conserve.
Exactly who's more greedy the landlord or the tenants? The tenants said, "Electricity had always been included in the monthly rent."Do these tenants really expect free electric, heat and water and rent regulated apartments. Maybe the tenants also believe the landlord should pay the them for the pleasure of living in his building. Hey tenants, make sure to call 311 today to complain that the elevator to slow to bring you down to your 'Access a Ride' cab so you can cash your entitlement checks and get your free health care too. Maybe I'm wrong about these tenants who came to this country one or two decades ago, for retirement and live off the fat of the land. Their own homeland only wants hard working industrious people who bring that nation up and help keep it safe.
It would stand to reason that if electricity were always included in the rent and now they pay for it separately that the rent would go down.
Those services were never free. They were included in the rent and now tentents are being billed twice.
If the costs are passed on to the tenants, a rent reduction is in order since this is a massive service cut.
"Sharon Eisenberg's] bill was close to $200 for three months of electricity,"
$200 for 3 mos????? That's friggin cheap! I got almost that much for 1 mos...
Not so cheap when you are paying it twice: Once in your base rent, and then again separately. Please note that this article mentions market rate tenants who are affected by this--not stabilized or controlled tenants. In fact, you could not do this to these tenants because they could get an enforceable rent reduction from the DHCR.
Some of these people may already be paying several thousand dollars to live there. Why do they need to be chiseled as well? Nothing is free. This is "free" the way anything a salesman gives you as an incentive is free: namely, it is secretly added to the price.
The tenants should be aware that ConEd jacks up your rates for summer, just when it hurts the most. The rates will go lower again in the fall. Gotta love ConEd. Anyway, $200 for 3 months sounds pretty cheap to me.
Free is even cheaper. After all, if you have a signed contract (which a lease is) that states it is included in the rent, then it's the landlord's responsibility to pay. After all, the rent has been increased to pay for these extras.
$200 for 3 months without A/C is in the ball park for an apartment.
Doesn't this action amount to a unilateral contract modification which would break the lease?
My co-op wanted to do sub-metering for tenents. The tenents voted it down. We are charged electricity fees in our monthly maintenance based upon your unit size and how many appliances you have. For example, if you have an AC you are charged $12 a month and a washer/dryer would be $21 a month.
I don't think that it was inventoried this way at the Forest Hills building.
Betwween LeFrak and Parker they have totally turned the (no longer) neighborhood into transients.
They have door men. I am sure the rent is not cheap!
The doormen are also encluded in rent. Lefrak tried to eliminate them thus qualifying for rent decrease.
Thats the real reason they want to eliminate Rent Stabilization. No Tenant Protection laws - they can do anything they want to or don't want to.
That is why Rockefeller put them back in place - within months NY landlords ran amuk.
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