A rental property charging an additional $200 per month to tenants who work from home has divided the internet.
The 535-square foot Bay Area cottage was listed for $3,250 a month with electricity, water, heat, air conditioning and internet included. But the additional remote worker fee raised eyebrows, with Reddit users calling it “insane” and “absurd.”
“You’re not supposed to actually occupy the space you’re paying $3,250 a month for, don’t you know that?!” one person sarcastically wrote on a post in the subreddit r/bayarea detailing the expenses that matched the home listing.
“They very likely just want more money and this is an excuse to claim it will be covering the overhead of utilities that will go up. Which they won’t go up $200+, but whatever. Any way to squeeze more money out,” another Reddit user wrote.
But others were more sympathetic to the landlord, arguing that renters would use more utilities working at home rather than going into the office.
“Working from home definitely adds to my utility costs,” one Reddit user wrote.
“Yeah its expensive af, only good thing is that water utilities & electricity are included in rent. it does not seem so bad. you can blast the ac/heater all day and leave the lights on,” another said.
The home is an accessory dwelling unit, which is a secondary place on the same property as a main house. The one-bedroom, one-bathroom furnished home is located in the Northgate neighborhood of Walnut Creek, California.
According to Rent.com, where the listing was posted, the property was last available on Monday, suggesting it has either been rented or taken off the market.
The Independent has requested comment from the listing’s point of contact.
With more Americans working from home than before the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s possible an additional remote worker fee could become more normalized.
But it seems to have not reached across the country yet, at least not for Chicago remote worker Christopher Williams.
“Work-from-home fee? Nah, I’ve never heard of that,” he told ABC 7.
“If my landlord switches to that method, I actually don’t work from home,” renter Cody Hall jokingly told the outlet.
Some Reddit users also questioned how a landlord would know whether their tenant worked from home.
“How do they even police that?” one person wrote on the r/mildyinfuriating subreddit.
The average cost of rent in the Bay Area — America’s tech industry hub — is $3,495 per month, or roughly 75 percent higher than the national average, according to Zillow.
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