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The biggest problem is the water and the gas. Each buildings bill is divided up, so you pay for others tenants use even if you don't use much or any for a month due to travel etc... I paid 205.00 for one month and I wasn't even home all month. This is really unfair. If they would use BGE tenants could at lease be charged for only what they use, or have the option of budget billing.
Knowing how this works before I signed the lease, I would have reconsidered. Think twice before getting into this entanglement of highway robbery.
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Manager's Response
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From:
Manager
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Date: 06/13/2007
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I am a manager at Briarcliff Apartments. We have privately owned and managed our communities for over forty years. Until three years ago, we included the cost of water and gas utilities in our rent. Our decision to bill residents for water and gas utilities based on a ratio of occupancy and square footage was necessitated by the radical increases in gas, water, and sewage utilities over the past three years. Our electricity is and always has been metered individually by apartment. When we transitioned to our Ratio Utility Billing System (RUBS), the installation of individual gas and water meters was, and still is prohibitively expensive. RUBS systems are common among many properties in our industry and have been found to be both legal and fair through a number of industry-related studies.
We know that new systems may, at first, be difficult to understand. This problem can be additionally complicated by some individuals who do not read their lease or do not understand the system and do not ask questions. We value all of our residents and want them to be completely satisfied with our homes and our service. We do not desire to hide anything from them, and if any of our residents has a question or issue, utilities-related or otherwise, we work with them as only a privately managed company can and will do.
It is our policy that members of our leasing staff inform every prospective resident about our utility billing system and remind them again at lease signing – in addition to providing them literature specifically designed to fully explain our metering system. Additional information may be found on our website: www.gebhartproperties.com in our residential properties section.
Ratio billing is based on averages. Our utility bills to residents are two to three months behind actual billing periods due to the timing of BG&E billing cycles. This means it might be a warm April day when you get a bill for February utility use. As for temperature settings, obviously no one could live comfortably at either 80 degrees or by never turning their heat on in the winter. A temperature change of a few degrees either way creates a negligible change in the actual bill for a whole building. We regularly check our bills against homes of comparable size in the local market and find them to be, on average, very close or less.
Our management staff is continually seeking out and implementing ways to ease the utility burden on our residents. In 2005 and 2006, we spent $1 million replacing our hot water heaters and boilers to improve efficiency and help save our residents money. The boilers increase our heating efficiency by about 40%, a savings which is experienced directly by our residents. We are currently spending over $2 million replacing our AC systems to increase our cooling efficiency by about 35%. From this improvement savings are passed on directly to our residents in the form of lower utility bills. And finally, we are replacing our windows to gain even more savings for our residents when heating and cooling their apartments.
It is important to understand that we do not make ANY money from our billing system; we are continually encouraging wise and conservative energy use among our residents. We will continue to find ways to help them save on utility costs. This is no easy task considering that Baltimore Gas and Electric has some of the highest utility rates in the nation and has just increased the cost of electric utilities by 50%.
Apartmentratings.com is designed for people to find constructive reviews of apartments, but emotions can often distort the facts and leave consumers wondering what the truth may be. We value our residents and have nothing to hide from them. Additionally, we offer features and amenities that cannot be found at any of the neighboring apartment communities in our area. I would encourage you to visit our leasing office and find out for yourself what separates our apartment homes from others in the Cockeysville area.
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Disclaimer: No attempt has been made to verify or assure the accuracy of the claims made by the author of this opinion or responses. You must judge the truthfulness of any review and accept responsibility for your use of this information.
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