In addition, I'm paying for Home Depot's financing programme whether I use it or not ... ie.

Or your a great programmer, tech engineer, do you want to wake up to inhale the smog, traverse a gauntlet of hobos and feces to buy the morning coffee?

., here at home there is a distinction between leasing a property with an option to purchase and a scheduled/deferred purchase programme and you want to be certain you do not inadvertently mix the two.

For the existing home: I have to install a separate heater that is thermostatically controlled from inside the apartment - I found a nifty little unit that will do the trick for under $300.

Its gotta be a dual zone system, then the FAU actually operates as 2 separate HVAC systems. 2 thermostats etc.

All that being said, I have seen situations where tenants complained about ovens not cooking properly and it turned out to be a bad thermostat.

I use Honeywell 9000 wifi thermostats that send me alerts for humidity or temperature levels I configure.None of these items have monitoring or monthly fees.

Ring doorbell, Nest Thermostat, (I forget the brand but) smart wall plugs/light switches got A LOT of attention in our latest rental and cost very little.

The A/C people came out ( I had authorized them to do the seasonal cleaning and maintenance as well at the same time).I got the bill for the regular maintenance..but on the bill was a charge for 20.00 for battery replacement in the thermostat.

That's like a company that does software development giving employees a bonus for referring other good programmers automatically makes the company a "scam".