“All inclusive” is doing a lot of unexamined work in rental listings. It can mean rent plus every utility plus furniture plus maintenance, or it can mean rent plus water. Since the difference is several hundred dollars a winter, the only useful version of the phrase is an itemised one.
What is in the four-weekly rent here
Heat. The line that matters most in this city, and the one most often quietly excluded elsewhere.
Water. Power. Wi-Fi.
The furnished room — a full bed with linens made up before you arrive, a study desk, a desk lamp, shelving. Most types add a wall-mounted television. The suite’s kitchen and its dining or sitting area are furnished too.
Laundry in the building.
On-site maintenance. Report something and it is handled; heat, water and power are ours to fix, so there is no bill at the end of it and no reason to live with a tap that drips for a term.
What is not charged on top
No utility bill. No accounts in your name to open in September and close in May, and no connection fees.
No service fee.
No application fee.
So the four-weekly figure on each room’s page — $560 to $880 depending on the room and the building — is the figure. The only other money in the process is one security deposit at signing.
What “inclusive” does not mean
Three things, stated plainly, because they are the ones people assume.
A private bathroom. One bathroom serves the four bedrooms in a suite, in both buildings. No room here has a private one.
Access to the other building. The fitness centre, the two laundry rooms and the lounge are at Garneau Towers, for Garneau Towers residents. A room at University Tower does not include them, a hundred metres away or not. If the gym matters, take a room at Garneau Towers.
Pets. Neither building permits them.
The billing period is part of the price
Worth repeating because it is the most common misreading of our figures: rent is quoted every four weeks, because that is the billing period. Four weeks is shorter than a calendar month, so a nine-month term comes to nine and three-quarter payments, not nine.
We would rather show the number you are actually billed than a monthly average nobody is ever charged. When you compare us to an operator quoting monthly, convert first — the full cost comparison is here.
The one line to get in writing anywhere else
Whoever you are talking to, ask this and wait for the answer:
“Which utilities are included, and which will be billed to me separately?”
Then ask specifically about heat. In an Edmonton winter, an “inclusive” figure that excludes heating is a different product at a different price, and the gap arrives in January rather than in the listing.
The rest of the checklist — deposit, lease term, bathroom ratio, house rules — is in reading a coliving contract.
