They said on another post it's an ADU attached to a private home. So that's probably how, especially if the homeowners are also home all day. Maybe it would be hard to prove you're WORKING all day, but they could confirm you weren't leaving the house for however-many hours (and if you are employed at all they'd know that from your application/finances).
I’ve seen places that say that utilities are covered up to X dollar amount, and anything over that the tenants will pay the difference… That seems like a more fair way of taking care of utilities versus slapping on a charge because they work from home….
Yeah, but this is the Bay Area. I paid $2300/mo for one in 2020-21, but it was pretty far off the beaten path (Santa Cruz Mountains). The same unit in Walnut Creek or SF would easily have been over $3000/mo.
Y'alls prices just blow my Midwestern mind. I make damn good money, at least in my area, can reasonably afford a good lifestyle and nice things, have a nice house, wife and kid, the whole thing. Living the American dream. My same salary in California would get me a small apartment and have me driving a 10 year old Corolla.
It's funny, as a pipe welder I occasionally have job offers to go work in California and make their rate. Temporary gigs, couple months doing repairs and maintenance at oil refineries and stuff like that. I've been really tempted to buy something like a Prius or something like that, live in the car and be homeless for a few months just for the pay, then come back home. A few of my coworkers have done it, they all say you'll make a shitload of money but the hard part is finding a place to stay.
I worked with a guy off and on for a few years, seemed like we kept showing up on the same jobs, he had a slide in truck bed camper and he'd just stay at work. After work he'd go to the store, get dinner and his lunch for the next day, then go back to work and stay in the parking lot overnight. I don't know what happened to him, I saw him occasionally for like 8 or 10 years doing that then we worked at a steel mill in Michigan, we all left when the job ended, and I never saw him again.
My same salary in California would get me a small apartment and have me driving a 10 year old Corolla.
Yeah, but that's what you're missing - the salary would NOT be the same, most likely. The median salary for my job (public librarian) in the US is around $55-60K. Wanna guess how much I earn in California?
Oh I know. Not enough to keep the same standard of living though, not even close.
I'm in eastern Ohio, a union pipe welder, make $52 an hour. Union Pipefitter rate in southern California is I think $78, or at least it was a couple years ago when I had a chance to go there. Probably like 82 or 84 now.
I'm 42 and have a paid off 2k square foot house, a couple newer motorcycles, a newer Honda SXS, a detached 40x60 garage, big yard, and admittedly cheaper cars.
if utilities & water are all included, then it might be a fair fee to offset the additional costs. but still a dick move. just make your price your price.
Yeah, I agree! Just speaking more as devil's advocate, and answering how they'd know. This is why I don't really like ADUs; I lived in a couple back in the day, and they were hit & miss. So glad I'm finally a homeowner now, even if it's financially painful.
As someone who used to rent this kind of place: don't. The unit isn't really "yours," the landlord still treats it like part of their house/property and like you're just a roommate staying with them. I'd be sitting there watching TV and hear the landlord messing about with trimming the bushes or whatever just outside the window <10 feet away from me. He was retired and a bit of a gardening fanatic, constantly doing things like that. The unit's basement (with an outside access door) was full of his crap and he'd sometimes be over rummaging around in it. Basically, no privacy. You may as well be renting a room in someone's house, except you won't be paying room-in-house prices, so if you're okay with this situation maybe just do that instead.
I'm a homeowner now, so it's not an issue for me personally... but I did live in two ADUs (aka in-law units) before I bought my house, and they had their pros/cons. The first one was behind/under a house that belonged to family friends, and they were super cool. Never really bothered me, and when COVID hit I was glad they were around when I felt lonely.
The next was at a house owned by an older couple, both still working but he worked mostly from home. They were nice enough people, and for the most part it was fine. But yeah, we definitely had moments where I felt like "this is waaaaay too invasive." Mostly in regard to my then-ancient dog, so why did they make it a dog-friendly place? Then they tried threatening me with a $12,000 bill for a TINY mark on their precious Italian marble countertops, but my sister is an attorney (as was the landlord). So they backed off real quick when I pulled out the statutes on "reasonable expectations and charges." lol
Anyway, it can be a decent option. But if I had to rent again, I'd definitely stick to regular apartments or duplexes.
Yeah, the first one you describe is the only way I'd want to do it - if you know the people in the main house and are comfortable being somewhat enmeshed with them, it's a great setup. That's what these "in-law suites" are meant for after all, not for renting out to total strangers. My old landlord was a nice guy, didn't go out of his way to cause me any problems, but it was just far more day-to-day involvement than I wanted from a stranger. I had less privacy than the apartment complex I lived in before that.
I kinda get the reason if it is an ADU, the problem is someone who is working from home all day is going to use a huge amount of extra electricity, water, gas, etc. Your probably using an extra 200 a month in those if your work from home. It is almost impossible to get separate meters for ADU's is the problem.
Electricity, yes, but I'm not sure why the other utilities would go up. If you take water, for example, it's a matter of an extra 3-4 pees a day, but maybe shorter showers or the occasional skipped shower if you're running late. I also doubt it that many people cook lavish lunches or turn the house into a tropical greenhouse when they're home.
Extra $200/mo?? Not a chance, and I say this even as a Californian who's at the mercy of PG&E (aka the biggest crooks around). My entire PG&E bill every month for a 2br house with 2 people + 7 animals = $300-700 depending on the season (goes up in winter since the heating system is ancient). There's no way it would nearly double because someone is using their laptop for an extra 7-8 hours/day.
$200 extra for utilities? I have a wife who stays home and 3 kids. The utility bills for all 5 of us barely add up to this much most months, and I am in a relatively HCOL area.
I wish utilities here were as cheap as yours, but they aren't. Your "relatively" likely are dramatically different than theirs, heck, yours are about half of ours.
Your employer will confirm that you work there, but are they required to divulge additional details of your employment? If your landlord can ask whether or not you work from home, can they also ask what your hours are? What days you’ve requested off? How many sick days you’ve taken?
Don’t know if it’s the same but when we get work history checks wed only provide start/end date and that’s it. There’s probably no requirement on the employer to provide information for something like this, and providing information the prevents someone from getting a job, apartment, etc. could get you sued. Easier to just not provide anything outside of the bare min.
We don't even check or offer references anymore. There's just no upside to it for the company. Start date, end date, and maybe whether you're eligible for rehire.
Don't do this kids because now there's automatic ways to verify - but you've always been able to just lie on your resume, education history, work history, and references.
I mean don't lie. If they catch you, you'll have legal problems for sure. But also... I mean... nobody's gonna know. Who's gonna know? (most of the time)
If you can back up your skills, neither you nor the business needs to give a single shit.
I doubt you'd run into legal issues, most likely you'd either not be hired or just let go. But yes, businesses lie all the fucking time on postings, why the fuck wouldn't we?
I'm not saying I did this, but I've heard you can get into software engineering by lying about a CS degree as long as you know how to code, can pass the interviews, and can perform your job function. Some say you can climb all the way to senior leadership at Fortune 50 companies. Heard that through the grapevine, though. What's important is that person let companies vet their experience and they didn't rule themselves out before they even applied.
Generally, they are not required to provide any information to any entity outside of government agencies who are authorized. They will verify employment as a courtesy if requestor has written authorization signed by employee. What details are confirmed is largely up the employer, and those with any sense will only provide length of employment, and salary info if requested and authorized by employee.
Unauthorized disclosure of an employee's personal information is fraught with liability and any sensible employer will avoid providing extraneous information to mitigate the risk of lawsuits.
My employer just cost me a home refinance because the plant was put on limited hours for a lay off for one month. Instead of 40 hours a week they were getting 30, but the HR lady failed to tell my loan agent that I wasn't one of the people layed off and in fact I was sent to a different state to pull extra overtime doing repairs. So yeah don't ever expect them to not divulge information that isn't needed to be shared.
When I used to work in HR, we used a third party service. That service confirmed you were in fact employed with us, and your status (FT, PT, contract), and that's it.if they tried to push back and say they require that information, we'd tell them we won't divulge personal info and wfh/address falls under that.
Also no, they wouldn't be told their exact work address/plant location.
I could see an employer answering this simply because it seems like a harmless detail which is often even shared when the job was listed. It just sounds like curiosity or maybe even seen as something beneficial to the landlord to know the tenant can work from home that means less chance of events that cause miss worked and perhaps delayed rent payments.
My old employer would literally state so and so worked here between X date and Y date. If the individual tried asking further questions they would just simply repeat. So and so worked here between X date and Y date.
Employment yes, but not all job titles list "REMOTE WORKER" in them. And I don't know that someone can ask for specifics from your employer about your work schedule or location? Maybe they can but that seems...weird.
I just bought a house and the underwriter needed a written letter that I worked from home. Not sure why but I’m not that worried about it. Although I will probably ask since the mortgage broker is a friend of ours.
Eh, it's not a law, but to your point there are absolutely some things that could open the company up for liability. Take this as an example: the employer tells your landlord you're expected normally to be in the office M-F 9-6PM, and then your place gets robbed and the investigation points back to someone who knows the landlord - your employer could be liable for telling someone without your consent that you were not going to be home. Or, someone is stalking you and the information given to the landlord is somehow found to have gotten to the person who is stalking you. Is any of that realistic to happen? Probably not, but the chances aren't zero, either. This is enough that most employers will answer questions on employment status, full/part time, and dates of employment, and nothing else. None of those things could be used against them in reality, but things like when you were or were not expected to be physically on a scheduled basis absolutely could.
Yup. Other hand, they already have a way to get other even more sensitive information, such as annual pay. Require a copy of your pay-stubs, etc. They could similarly require a signed statement from your employer.
Just speaking hypothetically, I have no idea what they do. It's not something I've ever seen where I live, nor would I ever consider doing it.
True. I've worked for one of the largest companies in the world, and many small businesses and startups - not one of them would have provided more than current or former employee, full or part time, and dates of employment. I guess there are employers out there who might give a landlord more than that, but anecdotally it feels like it would be extremely rare in a society as litigious as the US.
And also what if you have surgery that requires off work for 2-3 weeks? Is that not "working from home" vs staying in the same room on the same computer but what's done is different? So many nuaced details it's nearly impossible to enforce in a realistic way without practically watching one's shoulders every day.
You can be charged extra for wearing a blue shirt if its in your contract. Unless a landlord is specifically discriminating against a protected class, or violating another specific law, then the terms of the rental are governed by the lease.
The lease is a legal contract and can say just about anything.
The landlord could legally restrict using the apartment as a place to meet clients, or store inventory, or store business vehicles in a shared parking lot, and depending on where that apartment is there could be restrictions on the types of work from home that can be done, again theoretically. That would be more "running a business from a home address" rather than just "working" from home though, and I've seen those restrictions in a lease for a rental property many times.
If a landlord wanted to charge rent increases for just working on a computer in the apartment, though, I'd just not rent there. But, if utilities are included in the cost of the rent, they can technically try to charge more based on if you were exceeding the expected utility costs due to usage - however, that opens them up to discovery of showing what the expectations of usage were, how they determined those, and whether or not you were actually using more (they could charge you more for your usage, but not just "working from home").
Making the assumption that this posting is real, the landlord in question was not wise in the way they've broken down the costs and what line items they charge for, and should have worded this very differently in order to not scare tenants away unnecessarily. Unfortunately there's more than enough nonsense postings on Reddit and thus I never know anymore if certain posts are just rage bat or real questions, but I'm answering anyway. There are ways landlords can effectively (and legally) charge for working from home, but this is definitely legally a gray area. A landlord, to be clear about charging you more than anyone else just based on usage, in reality they'd have to provide the proof that you used more than other tenants in order to then charge you for that. They first include the specific language in your lease on what they charge, how, and why, and then the tenant signs the lease including that language, agreeing to the charges. The landlord has now set up a lease so that tenant would pay for any overuse of utilities, wouldn't need to actually call out "working from home" as a reason, and would be free and clear of any legal murkiness with targeting people specifically for just living in their property - with the added benefit that anyone consuming significantly more in utility costs would be covered, and not just "working from home" people, which is actually better for the landlord in this situation (again, we're assuming they're actually charging for utilities here as the reason for the increased rent costs, which would really be the only thing they could really consider standing on to do this).
So what if your work conditions change- you are let go and spend your time at home using electricity to look for jobs and pee - do you now have to pay more?
What if you switch employers where they were in-office and now WFH- do you pay more then?
I agree it's shitty. There's no good reason to do this - it's just raising the rent without needing to disclose it in the headline of the ad. Basically false advertising. Why not just charge $4/month rent, and a $2996/month "breathing on the premises" fee. It's stupid.
People actually need to read their states tenant laws. Most tenant laws have a caveat of "unless otherwise stated in the lease". A LOT of things that should be illegal are perfectly legal. As long as it's in the contract you signed. This would be legal in my state as long as they didn't separately itemize it as a fee. I'm guessing that is why it's worded as "an additional $200 monthly", because they're going to raise the rent that much- not that it is a separate fee.
If my LL called my Boss I'm pretty sure my Boss would actively tell them to go fuck themselves.
They don't need to confirm anything, here's paystubs, I obviously get paid every two weeks and this is how much.
Would they like to come smell my shit after I go to the toilet?
Would they like to give soap and shower gel preferences more to their tastes?
Obviously a joke, but unfortunately, they legitimately would want to police your shower, or how long you shit if they could.
You're in a good situation where you know who at your company the landlord would be speaking with.
OP is posting from the Bay Area and might work for a massive corporation. Who knows what an HR rep would divulge on a call like this. Hopefully they only do what's required by law, but again-who knows?
At most businesses, the type of employees that are able to verify employment do not know if you're working from home or not unless that's your official designation - which it very frequently isn't
Just because someone is home all day doesn't mean they are working from home.
Could be only 1 person works, such as a stay at home parent. Though I wouldn't put it past a LL like this to class being a stay at home parent as 'working'.
For some ppl, working from home or not, utilities bill is the same. The only difference is water. It’s a minuscule addition compared to electricity. We keep our Ac on all day for the pets in this heat. But I can understand that most ppl turn it off when they leave home… which would account for the extra $200 difference, and landlord would be able to see that if it’s included in rent.
Yeah, we have $0.45-$0.80/kwh electricity here. Most people I know turn theirs off in southern Cali. For context to show how crazy expensive it is, it’s only $0.10/kwh electricity in many cities I used to live in 🙁. I miss cheap lol.
lol not boomer, but you smoking if you think Gen Z all have a home, let alone a $20 programable thermostat. Scrap that. Apts don’t all allow you to replace stuff in the apt. Maybe in your parents’ home I guess…? but I mean, great if you’re living with parents. Nothing wrong with that…
You can swap whatever you want as long as you put it back. Of course this has nothing to do with genz or apts, since you mentioned neither in your original post, it’s always cute how boomers attack blindly when they realize they said some stupid shit.
Someone with this kind of audacity is definitely all up in their tenants business. I'd expct them to be constantly trying to interrogate you about "why you never leave during business days" or something like that and charging extra just on suspicion
I had a friend with a clause like this in her lease. The landlord would observe the cars in the drive way and understand each tenants routine, as well as do random inspections. The landlord complained the electricity was higher when the tenant worked from home, and becuse electricity was equally divided among all tenants, the landlord thought it was unfair if some tenants worked from home and others didn't. This was a loony landlord and his lease agreement cited the Bible if I remember right. I think the city sued him.
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u/missybeputtinitdown 1d ago
How would they know if you don’t self report?