Sometimes you need to be careful what side jobs you take on.
You start out well-intentioned, trying to make an extra buck, and wind up getting taken advantage of in some instances.
Recently, this happened to me when I answered an ad from Craigslist. It was a gig where somebody needed a house sitter for 2 weeks. At first I was more than happy to take over this job from them and make some extra money. Somewhere along the line, however, it turned into a bit of a nightmare. I have been at the house for a couple of hours when I noticed that the indoor air temperature was getting pretty hot. I waited around and turned on a ceiling fan, hoping that I would cool down. I didn’t want to waste any energy or abuse the expensive air conditioning and air purification system that was installed in the house. However, after an hour of sweating while I sat perfectly still, I got up and investigated the thermostat. That’s when I found that the air temperature control had been set at 80 degrees and there was a passcode on it. I texted the homeowners and ask them politely if I could please have the passcode to cool down the house since I would be staying in there for the next two weeks. They responded that they didn’t want me changing the AC settings, so they were not amenable to providing the thermostat passcode. They said my pay would decrease greatly if I continued to bother them about the indoor air quality. Unfortunately for them, I used to work for an HVAC shop. I simply pop to the thermostat off the wall and hardwire does the air conditioning unit so it was powered on. Good luck with your energy bill, suckers.