AITA for letting my roommate know that they need to turn off the light when they’re not in their room?

A Redditor who rents out a room in their house to a roommate on a flat-rate basis faces a constant issue: the roommate leaves lights and other electronics on throughout the house, causing a significant increase in electricity costs.

When asked to turn off the lights when they’re not in use, the roommate insists that LEDs barely use electricity and feels entitled to keep them on as part of the flat-rate agreement. The Redditor is left wondering if they’re being unreasonable or if their request is fair. Read on for the full story!

‘ AITA for letting my roommate know that they need to turn off the light when they’re not in their room?’

I own my home fee simple absolute and I charge my roommate $500/mo flat rate every month. So utilities are all included, but for some reason, my roommate thinks that they’re e**itled to leave their Alexa powered light on maybe 16 hours a day 7 days a week.

There is no plants or animals in their room, so I feel as if they don’t need to leave their light on even when they’re not home. Their reasoning is, and I quote “LED’s don’t use electricity, just the fixture” and “So I am an expert in electronics, and LED’s use *like* no electricity”.

I refuted the point by claiming that they do use electricity even if it’s a little, it adds up over time. Plus, they do this in every room in the house, they’ll leave the kitchen lights on, go to their room for 20 minutes and when they come out and the kitchen light is off, they’ll say some s**t like “Who turned off my light? I was using it”.

I would say something like “No one was in here, and how difficult is it to turn the light on again?”. Electricity has gone up to $700/mo from $200/mo after they moved in. They leave their lights on, brought a fridge into their room and leave their gaming computers, plural, on all day.

I don’t even ask them to unplug the fridge or computers, I’m just asking for the light to be turned off which is easily done without touching the switch cus they installed an Alexa to turn off their light. AITA for telling them to turn off the light when they aren’t using it?

Let’s dive into the reactions from Reddit:

YoudownwithLCC −  Edit- YTA Something is not right here. There is no way everything you have described made the electricity increase by $500.

jedirieb −  YTA. To yourself for focusing on the lights. Yeah, they add up, but that’s not what caused your electricity bill to skyrocket, and you know it. Do yourself a favor and ask them to pay for their share of the electricity.

starbiebarbie99 −  YTA – This is your adult roommate and tenant, not your kid. You can ask nicely but at the end of the day you don’t get to dictate their lifestyle in the room they pay for. You are the one that chose this style of lease.

If you would like to change it, wait until their term is up and either kick them out or offer them to renew on a utilities not included lease. Also, the lights aren’t the reason for the electricity increase. It’s the gaming computer.

moreKEYTAR −  Do you actually know how much your energy bills go up for one LED light to remain on for 24 hours? Do you have hard numbers on the cost? Because that is what you would need to present to your roommate, and I see you overestimating the cost. $700 from $200 makes no sense.

Have you ever lived with someone who grew up differently than you? In some households, you only turn on a light in the room you are in. In other households, people leave the main rooms lit to make it easy to go between them. In other households, people even leave a light on when they are not home to have a warm welcoming presence when they get home.

But that is also based on if they can afford it. How is the bill $700? Is the roommate taking advantage in other ways? Does this indicate you are incompatible as roommates? I would try to work toward the kind of relationship you want with your roommate: honest, open to listen, and one where you handle financial burdens fairly. If you can’t do that, end the arrangement.

Impossible_Nose8924 −  Are they mining crypto currency? That seems an insane jump in monthly electricity… Anyways, charge a variable rate for utilities. If included rent, then you are both equally sharing a**hole status; you for going flat fee then complaining, and the roommate for being completely uninterested in conserving energy. If you made them split utilities the problem would go away.

Snow2D −  Yes YTA. The only valid reason to complain about not turning the light off is cost. The cost per month for leaving one LED on _all day_ is less than 2 bucks.. You are complaining about peanuts. You already admit that you don’t care about the electricity costs so you come across as wanting to dictate someone’s behavior for no good reason.

Prestigious-Apple425 −  I’m confused. Are you complaining about the lights being left on or the higher bills? You seem to think it’s leaving the lights on that are causing the higher bills rather than the *actual* cause of them charging the Tesla. I’ve never needed to use a facepalm emoji on here more than I do now

vongdong −  YTA. You set the price so that’s your problem. I too think it’s annoying to leave lights on when no one is there but they’re paying you to live there so they pretty much can do as they please unless you have rules that. If you don’t like it then raise the rent or tell them to leave.

VeryAmaze −  YTA for accusing the lights lol. LED lights are so giga efficient, that the power cycling of turning them off and on does more harm to their lifespan. It costs a few cents a day to run a led bulb all day. I actually checked how much electricity my smart bulbs ate, as they are also “on” 24/7, and it looks like 20w **per day** per bulb.

And those are both connected to the electricity, and actually emit light for about 14ish hours a day.   Your roommate is probably using a ton of electricity somewhere, but it ain’t the bulbs. An electrician should be able to help you put an individual meter for his rooms electric circuit (and the EV charging station?), then actually see how much they are using. 

Hot-Adhesiveness-438 −  I’m going to state this differently from how other people have.. YTA. People are different. You like to turn lights off when you leave a space. Your roommate does not. It is not a safety hazard. It does not cause adverse affects to you. As long as they pay their rent, they have paid to leave the lights on forever if they want to.

You are being a controlling, overbearing, live in land lord. I can just see your next advertisement for renting this room “NO LIGHTS can be left on when not in room” and your list of interested tenants will dry up so fast because they will know you are being a controlling pain and not want to live with you. Take a chill pill.

Restructure the lease to account for their own utilities. And know they can leave the light on if they want to. Alternatively, if the chill pill doesn’t work. Install a bunch of motion activated lights and the lights will go off on their own and the tenant will have no say in the power usage.

Do you think the homeowner is being too strict about the electricity usage, or is the roommate overstepping by leaving lights and electronics on constantly? How would you address this in a shared living situation? Share your thoughts below!