If you add in a charge for electrical, that would need to be included in your rent controlled increase which would be very difficult to figure out how much the electricity usage would be over the lease term 2)in California a LL can only charge actual utility cost plus a small admin fee.  

But while you can easily do it definitely go for it.You will just want to clearly lay out the rule on things like parking and yard usage in the lease. 

I currently own a duplex and have a question regarding using RUBS for gas usage. 

We have paid the monthly water bill since then, but want to transition to having the tenants pay their own water usage using the RUBS/water allocations since each duplex is on a single shared water meter. 

This is because of the water park they can enclose for year round usage.

Do you think the an SMS campaign would be inappropriate? 

But it could also be the case that it's flat-out inappropriate for someone who is just starting off investing and has no meaningful net worth to protect.

You can buy inline products to gage the usage but most of us use the number of people in a unit to charge the tenants a fixed cost.

If it has been damaged in anyway - or if it appears they have been using it inappropriately (like sub-leasing, a business, etc) you can include that in your request with the court as another reason for termination.The good news here is that once a bankruptcy court orders them to pay - failure to do so will discharge their bankruptcy filing and you'll be back at eviction with full right to go after back rent due.

If the tenant had continued the inappropriate behavior I could have started the eviction process which only takes about five weeks.