Rising maintenance bills: pensioners fear the costs of this winter

The approaching cold season is a source of worry for many Romanians, and for pensioners and low-income families, every additional expense becomes a serious problem. According to Realitatea PLUS, falling temperatures will bring higher utility bills at a time when people say their monthly budgets are already difficult to manage.

Discontent in residents' associations

In some residents' associations, tenants are already trying to cut costs in order to keep up with their maintenance fees. Administrators and cashiers are seeing a growing number of cases in which pensioners can no longer cover these expenses on their own.

An employee at a residents' association explained that people are particularly worried about the prospect of winter, when heating costs are added to their usual bills: "People are very unhappy. If the summer period costs this much, they're thinking about what winter will be like when they also have heating and other utilities — how hard life will be. Especially the pensioners. Monthly expenses have been very high lately, with bills being extremely costly. Very high prices — I'm referring to Apa Vital, which has the highest cost per cubic metre that we have to pay."

"It terrifies me" — a pensioner living on 1,800 RON a month

A woman living on a pension of 1,800 RON described how difficult it is to cope with her expenses: "Well, we manage with quite some difficulty. I mean, on a pension — a pension of 1,800 RON — you can imagine what it's like. And there you have it. Hard. Very hard."

When asked whether she feared the arrival of winter, she replied: "It terrifies me, when it comes soon — we're on the CET system... With CET heating, I don't know what it's going to be like."

"I paid around 7 million"

Other residents in the block say that maintenance fees are already steep. One woman recounted that, for a two-person household, she recently paid "around 7 million" (the equivalent of 700 RON in the old denomination): "For now, we're getting by. However we can. And whatever needs to be bought... Yes. So I pay a lot. And now I've paid around 7 million." When asked how many people the amount covered, she specified: "There are two of us."

"It's going to be a disaster"

Another resident estimates that, for a four-person household, the winter bill will exceed 1,000 RON: "So this winter, at the very least, I'll be paying over 1,000 RON for four people. At the very least! It's going to be a disaster. It is a disaster! In this country... Yes. It's going to be a catastrophe."

When asked why she thought things had come to this point, the woman commented: "We deserve our fate. It depends on who we voted for. That's the truth."

For those on small pensions, a high maintenance bill can mean giving up other essential expenditures. As cold temperatures set in, more and more Romanians fear that the amounts they owe will rise again, given that they say they are already struggling to meet their monthly costs.