A woman has split opinion online after she admitted she charges her boyfriend rent when he stays over at her house because the utilities he uses while he’s there aren’t ‘free’
If you have visitors over, do you charge them for the utilities they use?
One woman has split opinion online after she admitted that she charges her boyfriend rent even though he doesn’t live with her. Marystella ‘Malle’ Gómez, a social media influencer from Colombia, said her boyfriend often spends the weekend with her at her house, and when he does, she charges him a set fee to help with the increase in utilities – such as electricity and water – that the two of them will use compared to when she’s by herself.
Malle explained her choice while appearing on the Los Platos Sucios podcast last week, where she told host Ana MarÃa Cardona and fellow influencer Isabela Rivera that her utilities aren’t “free”, so she doesn’t see anything wrong in making her boyfriend pay his fair share.
She said: “He stays over on weekends, and I still charge my fee. I mean, are the services here free? Is the water here free? I don’t see anything wrong with it.”
The other women on the podcast told Malle they didn’t agree with her actions, but she claimed she’d even managed to convince her friends to do the same with their partners. As the debate continued, the woman cited a video she had seen on social media, stating: “If a man is not helping you have a better financial life, then what are you doing?”
However, the other women argued that if it was the other way around and their partners charged them for staying at their place, they’d be outraged. Ana Maria said: “If a guy ever charges me a fee, forget it,” while Isabela added: “I couldn’t be maintained, I’d get bored.”
And when the podcast made its way to social media, opinion was split about whether or not Malle was doing the right thing. Some were on the side of the other women, as one person labelled Malle an “extreme miser”. Another said: “No, it’s like if my boyfriend charged me every time he picked me up and took me home.”
Others, however, were on Malle’s side, saying that it’s no different to having a roommate or living with a partner where you might split the cost of utilities evenly. Someone wrote: “Before we lived together, mine would always stay from Thursday to Monday. One day I told him he had to pay for utilities, and so it was done.”
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