Ask Amy: Saying ‘no’ to pushy house guests is seasonal
Life is too precious to spend even a portion of it laying out the guest towels for toxic people.
Dear Amy: We love our little electric-powered car. It has just enough range to get us from our home to Cape Cod — but not back again — without recharging.
We rented a house for vacation and I felt like I was being sneaky, snaking an extension cord to charge the car from the house.
My question is, should I feel bad?
Should the host expect that guests will use a certain amount of electricity? I wouldn’t ask the house’s owner to pay for a tank of gas, but there also isn’t another convenient way to charge our car for the trip home. What are your thoughts?
– Jack
Dear Jack: My thoughts are that you should use your phone to map out charging stations along your route — and close to your destination — and use those stations to charge up your car.
(I’ve checked and see that there are several EV charging stations along the length of Cape Cod.)
Additionally, you wouldn’t feel bad now if you had run this past the landlord before your stay.
You could say, “We have a little electric car that uses about $5 worth of electricity to fully charge. We can charge it from a regular 110-volt standard household plug. Are you OK with us charging one time during our stay in the house? We’d be happy to add the cost to our rental fee.”
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