RUBS Are Junk Fees: Why Tenants Deserve More Than Consumer Protection

RUBS are junk fees in housing.

Ratio Utility Billing Systems (RUBS) function as hidden junk fees that tenants cannot avoid, verify, or control. Like other junk fees, RUBS are mandatory charges imposed without meaningful transparency or choice. Unlike airline or banking junk fees, however, RUBS operate inside people’s homes — where the consequences include rent debt, housing instability, and displacement.

Junk fees are typically defined as charges that are unavoidable, confusing, disconnected from the actual service provided, and imposed by parties with disproportionate power. RUBS meet every one of these criteria. Tenants billed through RUBS do not pay for what they personally use. Instead, they are charged based on landlord-chosen formulas tied to building-wide utility consumption — even when they conserve.

While regulators such as the Federal Trade Commission have taken action against junk fees across industries, rental housing remains largely excluded from enforcement. This gap allows landlords to shift operating costs onto tenants through opaque utility charges that function like junk fees but carry far greater consequences.

Consumer protection laws assume choice: the ability to compare options, walk away, or switch providers. Tenants do not have these options. Housing scarcity, non-negotiable leases, and the high cost of moving strip tenants of meaningful consent. As a result, RUBS exploit the limits of consumer protection by treating tenants like consumers — rather than residents with rights.