Charging tenants for utilities after they move out?

[Ginny Townsend]

Hi BP Nation!

We have a furnished short-term rental in Sacramento and since we have a pool/hot-tub, we've included in our lease that we would cover up to $xx on our utilities bill, but over that we would pass the charges on to them. All of our tenants have agreed to that.

But an issue that we ran into for this first time is Northern California's utilities company bills electricity annually because we have solar... After our last tenant's moved out (and had been out for a little over a month) we received a MASSIVE bill showing they went over the limit by about $1,000 all in all during their 6 months at our place.

I'm struggling with how to handle this. Since they've already moved out, i know I won't have leverage. Is it even appropriate to ask our previous tenants to cover at least some of this cost?

It was a lesson learned...

Thanks in advance for any insights!

Ginny