There are times when I look back and ask
myself why I didn’t listen to clear warning signs. I can remember a very exciting time in my
life when I was moving with my wife to a brand new city. We were not really moving far, but we were
moving to arguably the most expensive and nice city in our State.
We found a lovely looking apartment complex
and it was incredibly inexpensive. My
lovely wife and I were ecstatic about the opportunity to move into a 1200
square foot apartment that was affordable in a city we loved. The price seemed
to good to be true so we set up a time to visit.
We toured the main office and the apartment we
were interested in. It all seemed to
perfect. The multiple rooms were already
being planned and painted in our heads. The
kitchen was to be filled with our french presses and we were envisioning fresh
coffee on the porch each morning with our little dogs.
As we walked out of what seemed to be the most
perfect apartment we notice our then soon be future neighbor walking out. Then we saw she was walking out to a moving
truck. We asked her what she thought
about the complex and she stated she loved the area and amenities of the
apartments. Begging the question I
nugged one final question to her and asked why she was leaving. She told me because of the heating. It was summer and in all honesty I brushed
off her response completely. I didn’t
even follow up with a single remark. My
reply was simply, well thank you for your time and have a great day.
The next month we moved in. We spent a lovely summer enjoying the
location and amenities with the windows open and fans on to save on
utilities. That summer was mild and we
almost never ran the air conditioning.
Because of this we never tested out the windows and insulation in our
apartment.
The summer was mild, but the winter turned out
to be catastrophically cold. Our heating and air was all ran on electricity and
the first month of winter we ran out heater constantly. We stayed toasty warm through freezing temps
and thick snows. Then the worst that winter had to offer came. The electric bill. Our electric bill was half the cost of the
rent for the month!
The cost had instantly made me suspicious of
an error by the electric company. I had
called them multiple times and they were even wondering if someone had siphoned
power from our apartment. Meters were
checked and inspections were made and month two rolled by and our electric
usage was still astronomical.
It turns out the windows at our apartment were
old and had almost no insulation properties.
We began to notice drafts next to the windows and started researching
the apartment complex. It turns out the
place was 50 years old and the windows had not been replaced. The cost of heating the apartment was
astronomical and the simple warning of a neighbor I blew off the summer before
had cost us. We now know why the
apartment complex was so inexpensive to start with. The cost of utilities was built in and was
simply beyond our budget.
