Are my landlords allowed to steal my electricity?

Hey all, first time renter here in the state of MN. I recently had power go out in my apartment while some cleaners were shampooing the rugs in the hallway. This isn’t a service that I requested and no cleaning was done in my apartment. After the cleaners had tripped the breaker in my apartment, it led me to understand that they are using my metered power to clean the entirety of the hallway. After speaking with the office staff, I was told, “the building is old and there’s nothing we can do.” But I think it’s kind of messed up they’re stealing my electricity without permission. Is this allowed?

Thank you to anyone who reads or responds.

Your monthly bill shows how much you pay per amp hour. Next, figure out what device they are using, then find out how much power it draws, and send the bill for 24 cents or what little amount it comes to.

I’m sure there’s probably a provision about routine maintenance and fair usage. It’s a community space that needs to be taken care of. That’s an inadvertent plus to you because they care about upkeep. If you even mention this, they might not want to renew your lease.

Some things are worth a fight; this definitely isn’t in the big picture. You could win this skirmish. You’ll definitely lose every battle and war.

@Lex
If it is just the outlets, it might be, at absolute most, $100 a year in electricity usage. I would test all of the lights/outlets in the hallway and see just what is wired to your apartment. If you want to be petty, you could flip your breaker that the outlets are connected to and force the cleaners to use a different outlet.

@Lex
The issue is that there are only about 5 apartments in the hallway that have outlets outside, meaning that out of the 30 people in the hallway, us 5 are paying more for the cleaners while everyone else isn’t paying a dime. While it might not cost much, I also don’t have a ton of money to throw away, and it’s definitely not free to be running multiple vacuum cleaners that are so power-hungry they manage to trip my breaker.

@Lyle
It is probably literally a dime’s worth of power.

At most they are pulling 1800W (this would only be the case if the only thing being run on that circuit was the cleaning tools). How long does it take to vacuum? An hour?

Round up to 2,000Wh just to be safe (1800W * 1 hour = 1800Wh). A quick Google says power in MN costs about 17.16 cents per kWh.

2,000Wh * $0.1716/1kWh = $0.35.

The worst case situation is it’s costing you 35 cents every time they do it.

Keep in mind that’s maxing out the circuit, and they’re using that maximum amount of power for the full hour. I highly doubt they’re running the vacuum at full power for the full hour, so it’s likely even less.

@Lyle
Yea, sorry, but pissing off your landlord by being petty over less than 50 cents a month is not going to be worth it.

@Lyle
Throw whatever breaker they tripped and see what goes out in the hallway. If it’s one outlet, you’re going to launch a costly battle over literal nickels per year; if it’s lights and all the outlets, it may be worth discussing with your landlord. Being right for the sake of being right isn’t going to get you anywhere in life. You’re involved in an ongoing business transaction with your landlord; souring the relationship over cents per week is insane unless you live in the most expensive rental in town already.

Unless somebody has a device that’s connected to one of these outlets that’s continuously using electricity, the amount of money that we are talking about is not worth this fight.

Some other commenter mentioned the math. The biggest most powerful commercial carpet cleaning device that you could possibly run isn’t going to use more than 15 A of power for a couple of hours at most. We’re talking at worst a dollar’s worth of electricity.

The juice isn’t worth the squeeze here… this would have been about fifty cents or something of electricity.

Ainsley said:
The juice isn’t worth the squeeze here… this would have been about fifty cents or something of electricity.

How about the tripping of my breaker and being told by building maintenance to just not use my office while they clean the hallway? How can that be reasonable?

Since you’re in Minnesota, u/homeline is a non-profit tenant advocacy organization that offers free legal help and advice for renters in Minnesota. This might be a good starting point if you don’t find what you need here as well. They’re active on reddit, but have further information here: https://homelinemn.org/. They are very well-versed on the specifics of Minnesota tenant/renter law and what (if anything) might be available for remedies.

@Sawyer
Thank you! I’ll see what they say.

Regardless of how much is being used or not, they should not be charging you for a shared space unless it specifically says so in the lease. There’s something called CAM (common area maintenance), but this should be charged to everyone either equally or based on square footage of their space. Them not being transparent about what you’re being charged is definitely something that should be corrected, and it’s their responsibility to do so. Of course, as others mentioned, they could choose not to renew your lease depending on how far you push it, but I’d try to work something out with a rent reduction if they truly aren’t able to fix the electricity.

@Penn
Thank you, and your point about them choosing not to renew rent is definitely valid. I appreciate you actually answering my question about the legality of the situation too, as it seems everyone else here has forgotten I had asked for legal advice.

While I don’t think I’ll harass the office about a rent reduction, I’ll see if they can replace the outlet with a blank face as a compromise.

The legal concept is ‘de minimis’. Basically when an amount is so little, the court won’t bother with it.

If you are talking say less than $5 a month in electricity, just move on.

Blake said:
The legal concept is ‘de minimis’. Basically when an amount is so little, the court won’t bother with it.

If you are talking say less than $5 a month in electricity, just move on.

So I should just roll over and let the landlords take advantage of me? When should I let it stop? I understand that it’s not a large amount of money, but it’s still theft.

If I go to a store and steal $5 worth of stuff, it’s not a big deal, sure. But if I do that once a week for a year, that adds up to $260. That’s enough for a store to press charges on someone, so why isn’t it okay for me to have an issue with it?

My landlords already nickel and dime us, even charging $12 a month for “pest control” and make us pay monthly for a security deposit. Why should I just let them take even more money?

@Lyle
Their mistake was not asking for permission, out of respect and principle. But their use was cents. An AC is not comparable because the energy consumption is not comparable. You’ve already wasted more time than it’s worth by posting and arguing. No one will take this seriously because it’s not worth anything.

@Tan
So how about my point of a neighborhood service hooking up to your house to clean the entire block without your permission? If they used your garden hose and power to for example power spray the sidewalk, would you be okay with not being asked? Would you be okay with having your breakers tripped, preventing you from using your own utilities in your home? Would you be okay if you were just told ‘just don’t use those utilities in the meantime’ if you need those to do work? Because that’s the reality for me. It’s not just the theft of electricity, I’m also unable to use my office whenever they’re cleaning, and I’m expected to surrender my power for the meantime while they use it. That’s absolutely absurd that people continue to suggest I just allow it to happen.