Landlord & Shady Utility Charges
landlord tenant attorney California Aug 7, 2026
LOCATION: Southern California Sorry this is long & tried to summarize in one section titled “THE PROBLEM” RE: Use of “RUBS” Utility Billing System Hi guys, BACKGROUND: I’m in the San Diego area and I moved there with high hopes about 4yrs ago. When I moved in the manager was super personable & had been w/ the company for years, told us the whole history of the company that manages the property, etc. At that time, the manager told us that the utilities are charged using a formula based on the sq footage of the unit multiplied by the number of people living in the unit. From that she was able to give us an idea of what the rent plus utilities would be (she said the utilities would be roughly $100 a month). And that’s CONSISTENTLY what the utility costs were each month for the past 3yrs (some months were slightly over $100; but we’re talkin maybe over by $5-$10 at the most. Well, last year, I got a contract job offer I could not refuse that requires travel so I was not home very much. I’m talking gone for months at a time. Then, while on the road, I had an accident and had unbelievable dizziness and didn’t feel safe to drive back to San Diego and there were a record number of airport safety issues. Because of this I stayed with relatives near where I had been working and my job agreed to GREATLY reduce my work duties until I fully heal (but the recovery has taken almost a year and it been hard). So in short, my apartment was empty from around Christmas 2025 to like Jan 2026 til now and I was BARELY able to pay my rent (due to my reduced work hours), but somehow every month, somehow I did it. Despite paying the rent, I was unable to pay the utilities and advised management of my health/financial difficulties. To their credit they have worked with me but I get regular warnings about being behind on my utilities by about 4-6 months. “THE PROBLEM:” The original property manager left and now it’s been a CRAZY amount of turn over within the last year. Despite the management changes, I have told management that although it would be a financial strain, I’m willing to pay the arrears on the utilities. However, I question the charges because the utility charges are higher than EVER since I’ve lived there (like $150-$170/month during months that my mother & I were GONE). The last 3 managers have said that they have no way to break down how they are calculating what I owe on utilities. 2 managers told me that they are calculating the utilities based on the number of occupants in the apartment block I live in, meaning if my neighbors next door move in 10 people who wanna run water all day and keep the lights on all day, they take the # of occupants in the building block of apartment units multiplied by the square footage of all the units in the apartment block. Given all this, I wonder…Is this legal in California? NOTE: My apartment management uses the “RUBS” system and it is confusing. It seems like it’s it shouldn’t be legal to charge utilities based on a tie to how you AND ALL your adjacent neighbors utilize utilities. I JUST wanna resolve this so the tension can alleviate, but I also don’t like the vibe this situation is giving me.
