Utilities left on by tenant

[Ryan Kinley]

Hello All hopefully this is an easy one to answer. I did some searching but couldn’t find the answer so I’m putting it out there. I had a tenant move out in September 2019 and I did not go in to make it rent ready until the end of December but made sure it was cleaned out and the heat was at 55.

Basically she never had the gas shut off and there was roughly a 2 month period that it was in my possession.

Keep in mind she was not paying the rent and did not let me know she was moving out . Her stuff was in there after she left as she was telling me that it’s her belongings and not to go inside.

I went in once to make sure there was no food left out due to mice

To avoid any kind of legal problems I let her keep her stuff they’re basically for a month until I was clear with her that we had to get her stuff out of there.

Contractors were in there working and painting so the heat was turned up during the end of December and I had a tenant filled by the end of January. At that point the gas was transferred.

Until that point the gas was in the tenants name but I was unaware at that time .

Now the tenant is asking me for $6000 because the gas was never paid .

Thanks for taking the time to assist .