heat and hot water

I paid for heat and hot water in my previous apartment because it was gas regulated and each apartment had its own boiler. It was a pretty large management company (which has been around for 30 years) so I would assume it's legal to charge if the boiler is separate for each apt.

^^ yep. I live in a small (four apartments) privately owned building and pay my own heat and hot water. There's a separate boiler for each of apartment.

If you control your own heater thermostat and you have your own boiler then YES you pay for what you use. Upside, you get to determine how hot/cold your place is and no more bitching about being cold in the winter or too hot. Downside, you are probably going to be a bit cold to save money in the winter because now you have to pay for it :P

You never can will when renting, as I've found this out personally.

So, in my last apartment, my roommate and I paid for heat and hot water. Yes, we could control the heat--you'd think that life would be peachy with power over how hot/cold you'd like the place. Here's the problem (and a big problem it is): we lived in an old apartment with air leaking in/out EVERYWHERE. We had the heat cranked, and were still freezing! Also, during the winter months we ended up paying a helluva lot of money. On average our monthly bill was $400 ($200 per person). No buneo.

After that, I will never live in an apartment that doesn't have heat, hot water included.