As a host who has been required to change from short term “ holiday” lets to longer corporate type lettings by recent changes in Irish law, I have encountered a problem that I didn’t anticipate. Because I offer a large apartment with gas central heating which only bills me every two months for the gas used, I have suffered two successive rentals that resulted in huge gas bills ( after the guests had left ). One was for €630 for a two month period, the second one was for €270 for fifteen days ! Even in winter ,when I lived there, my own bills were never greater than €240 for a two month period. To have generated such massive bills my guest must have run the heating at full heat on a 24/7 basis, over riding the clock timer and generous heat settings that I had set up before they arrived. In fact upon first entering our place forty eight hours after the last group of four men had returned early to their native Poland, I was greeted by a wall of heat and found that the had apparently pulled the door behind them leaving an electric fire and several lights on and the gas heating going full on. This followed a well delivered instruction by me that they were not to interfere with the heating controls, by me on their arrival. They had been booked to stay in our place until next November but I cancelled their return trips when I saw what they had done. They had also returned cooking pots to their storage places unwashed as well as many other unacceptable dirty habits. If I had allowed them to stay their scheduled ten months just think what damage they could do.
Hopefully my installation of a new tamper proof, remote by phone app, heating control will prevent any further such wanton waste of heat. These guys left for work every day in the early morning and returned in the late evening. The apartment was unoccupied for twelve hours each day, and they left the heating on all day, every day. I can guarantee they didn’t leave the heating on in Poland when they left to come to my place.
