Ratio Utility Billing Systems (RUBS) is a method of utility billing that allows landlords to charge tenants for utilities by allocating a portion of the entire complex’s bill to each tenant instead of charging tenants for their actual usage. It is a system under which tenants have no control over their bill and no way of knowing how their landlord is calculating their bill without demanding the accounting, which landlords frequently refuse.
Landlords bill utilities with RUBS because it allows them to pass operating costs on to tenants in a way that is easier to hide. Many use RUBS to get around rent stabilization laws by funneling increased charges into utility bills. According to the National Consumer Law Center, landlords do this by manipulating formulas for calculating individual bills, hiding fees in the master bill, and paying a master-metered utility bill at a commercial rate but passing a higher residential rate onto tenants.
Campaigns to ban RUBS have taken off in Los Angeles and Seattle, but have yet to establish themselves in San Diego. Nevertheless, when the tenants of La Suzanna Tenant Council received news that their landlord was going to switch from a low, flat utility bill of $30.00-$60.00 to RUBS on top of yearly rent increases, they decided to do something about it. They told their landlord that their first RUBS bill of $173.00 was unacceptable. They coordinated to stop paying their monthly utility bill together until their demands were met. They also demanded an accounting of the bill under San Diego’s Residential Tenant Utility Fee ordinance (O-21987).
Photo of Seattle Ban Rubs and Puget Sound Tenant Union
Below is a question and answer session we had with the tenants at the council about their organizing efforts and the results!
What was the thing ticked you off and made you feel like it was time to get organized?
Yearly rent increases as well as the changeover to RUBS is what got us organized.
How do you understand RUBS and what it accomplishes for the landlord vs. what it offers tenants?
It allows landlords/property managers to pass the increasing cost of basic utilities onto their tenants in an unfair way.
How did you get people together and begin organizing demands?
Most of us were already friendly with each other so it was not difficult. Also wasn’t difficult to get people to agree that we would like to try and save money by pushing back on the implementation of RUBS. We were even able to bring non-RUBS tenants on board by letting them know it will eventually affect them as well. Just started with a mass text and had a meeting at our apartment and invited everyone.
What victories were you able to claim from your efforts?
We unfortunately could not eliminate the transition to RUBS completely. But – We were successful in getting the management company to reduce the RUBS max from $200 a month down to $100 a month.
We were also able to push management to renegotiate the cost of trash pick-up. We requested all billing information we were legally allowed to obtain. When we reviewed the cost of trash pick-up, we realized the owner was paying for services that were not being rendered. We pushed back on this cost and were able to get it reduced greatly.
Any takeaways from this experience that find important for yourself and other tenants in SD?
Yes – There is strength in numbers and always try to negotiate. If it was just one apartment barking about RUBS the property management most likely would’ve blown us off. They were not able to do that when they knew most units were fighting RUBS.
