$700 electrical bills shock Kalaeloa renters

While most Oahu residents have seen their electrical bills drop along with oil prices in the last two years, there’s a pocket of renters in Kalaeloa who are struggling to pay bills as high as $700 a month.

“We have to pull back spending on food and gas,” said Sapati Umaga, whose bill spiked to $751 in August, up from $435 in May. Umaga, 28, lives with Chelsey Silva, 27, and their daughter in a rented two-bedroom town home.

They were among more than a dozen residents of Kalaeloa Apartments who gathered at Barbers Point Bowling Center on Thursday night to figure out how they can bring their electrical bills back down to earth.

Rep. Andria P.L. Tupola (R, Kalaeloa-Ko Olina-Maili) hosted the meeting after many of the residents of the Kaimana town homes reported having problems with their management companies. The homes, which were built as military housing, don’t have separate electrical meters, and their power is provided by the Navy. The management company pays the electrical costs for all the units and then bills each renter based on the square footage of their home and the number of people living there.

Salt Lake City-based AMC LLC, which managed the property until Monday, didn’t provide clear answers as to why the bills were so high, Tupola said. Charleston, N.C.-based Greystar took over this week and did not respond to phone calls requesting comment Friday.

Manager a no-show

Greystar representatives did not attend the Thursday meeting, although Tupola said she invited Dana Beckstead, Greystar’s regional property manager.

“The bills jumped exponentially in the last few months, and we need a reason why,” Tupola said at the community meeting. “There is something to figure out between your management company and you.”

Three management companies have come and gone over the last 10 years since San Francisco-based Carmel Partners bought 520 mostly town homes in three neighborhoods, now known as Makai, Mahana and Kaimana, in 2005 from a private partnership that acquired the homes and other real estate at the former Barbers Point Naval Air Station from the Navy in 2003.

Only residents at the Kaimana have had problems with their utilities, according to Tupola. Electricity at the Makai and Mahana town homes is provided by Hawaiian Electric Co. Tupola said she hasn’t heard complaints from residents in those units.

The typical monthly HECO bill on Oahu for customers using 500 kilowatt-hours of electricity was $134.73 in August.

The residents at the Thursday meeting all live in the Kaimana neighborhood.

Umaga, who had the $750 bill last month, said his family isn’t home all day and doesn’t use air conditioning often, but the utility bill grows every month.

“We leave at 4 a.m., and we don’t get home until 5 p.m. or 6 p.m., and that is an everyday thing,” Umaga said. “We are hardly even home.”

For now Silva and Umaga are just watching what they spend.

To make ends meet

Silva said she is looking for a second job to help the family pay for the utility bill, as the family is locked into a one-year lease and to walk away would cost them $3,000.

“I’m a dispatcher,” Silva said. “I got a cashier job just to make some extra.”

The couple said they moved in because Kaimana was offering a prorated rent. Now the couple pays $1,650 rent, and the electrical bill has nearly doubled.

Kalaeloa Apartments earned 1.5 stars out of a possible five stars from the 58 reviews on the website Yelp.

The major complaint among the Yelp reviewers was the utility bill.

“Utility bills are just plain robbery, and probably the worst part about living here,” Dan B. said in a one-star review. “Electricity is at an all time high with no change in daily living, except we use less now due to the high bills.”

Glynn Crawford, 48, a resident in Kaimana for nearly a decade, said his August electrical bill was his biggest yet.

“This is the highest bill I have ever paid as of today: $797.17,” Crawford said. “I hang-dry my clothes. I do most of my cooking outside in the back. I’m not running my AC. During Christmas I was running Christmas lights; my bill never got to $797.”