According to the article, the lease (rental rate) includes fully paid utilities and internet.
The landlords are then saying - if you're going to work from home full time, we'll raise the rate by $200.
One can dispute the figure/amount but the logic seems reasonable i.e. if you're working from home full time, then you'll probably run the AC for way longer than if you went to the office 5 days a week for at least 6 hours each day, you'll user more internet and/or we might need a higher speed internet/bandwidth, you'll use more power, etc.
The other points are well made, though. The lesson, I suppose: bills included is a bad idea. The incentives are misaligned all round.
This also covers adult children playing games all day, or a variety of other situations. Seems weird to single out work from home.
Keep in mind this is a 1 bedroom ADA and so they’re probably targeting a specific type of tenant.
Want to do some nails as a side hustle, sell homemade goods via the internet, or make extra cash repairing people's cars in your garage over the weekend? Sorry, contract says no, enjoy your eviction for "operating a business" or "commercial use of the property".
Banning WFH or charging extra for it is just the logical next step. You're working, so that's commercial use! And you're saving money by not having to rent an office and causing extra wear & tear to the property, so to a landlord it is obvious that you should be paying extra - why should you get to freeload, after all?
Submit a pay stub and job offer letter referencing hybrid/in-office/in-person employment and get a $200/month discount.
The idea of this is not completely crazy. I definitely wear on my home hardware when working from home. However, the rent is supposed to already be covering the typical amount of wear and tear and there’s no need to get this silly about it.
The one place where I've seen something like this, but not framed this way, was with a reverse commute. Someone in the city, commuting outside of the city for work each day. Leaving during business hours frees up parking during the most in-demand times, and they are only there during off-peak hours. As a result, they got cheaper parking.
With this being a house, that wouldn't make sense. The reverse commute thing only really makes sense for a large lot or garage shared with the public or monthly pass holders.
what are the limits for all of those?
no the idea is stupid and greedy
Unfortunately the government is extremely interested in what you do in your property, and this makes it the landlord's business. That said in this case, it seems more like homeowners are renting out a small unit behind their home, and want to disincentivize people who will be there more. Personally if you can work from home I'm not sure why you'd live in a bay area suburb, especially not walnut creek, but to each their own I guess.
but one of the pieces that didn't make it to the top of reddit's discussion was that it's a shared-living situation, not your own apartment or isolated basement.
its shitty, but it's not like a landlord trying to regulate how often you're in your own private apartment
We're talking about landlords here. What else did you expect?
Certainly you can't run a shop front in a residential setting, but it's not the "operating a business" part so much as the "serving customers in person" part that would cause a disturbance.
I only mention it because I have seen people who sell their art on etsy getting these kinds of eviction notices for "operating a business" and the claimed issue is not that the tenant is making art but specifically that they are profitting from it finacially.
I think with most of these rules, they are there to give them some teeth incase something gets out of hand in one way or another, and are often only enforced if something becomes a problem. Alternatively, they’re used to get someone out who is a bad tenant/neighbor, and they need to find a technicality to boot them out for everyone else’s sanity.