These delusional Airbnb owners just make crap rules on the spot.

It’s not theft. If they don’t want you doing it, they need to specify it

Better to use hotels instead, at least you know what you’re getting

We once stayed at an Airbnb in Florida. The property owners were not local. They had an employee come give us an orientation to the house upon check in. During the check-in he had us read the electric meter. When we left we had to read the meter again. The electric rate was in the rental contract so it became part of our final bill. It was a little strange but it made sense that we would pay for what we used.

Charging an electric car via the mains rather than an official charging station takes much longer and can cost homeowners hundreds of pounds.

It doesn’t typically cost any more to charge slowly than it does to charge fast. Unless you’re on like an economy 7 plan with cheaper rates overnight, but even then charging at the same time would incur the same cost per kWhr. If anything it’s far cheaper than any paid charging station.

It’s not theft unless the owner specified in the conditions of the rental that car’s couldn’t be charged at the property. (Even then “Theft” is a strong word!)

That being said - there is obviously a big difference in charging your phone and charging a car and really we are at a point where this should be clear in all holiday rental agreements one way or another.

I don’t think the owner would be happy if someone just turned on all the taps in the house and left them running for the entirety of their stay. There is a sort of “fair use” which is assumed (if not actually in writing)

Question comes if car charging should always be assumed “fair use” or is that above and beyond? Or is it a gray area that just “depends”… Much better for everyone if all this is made as clear as possible in the agreement right at the beginning.

I think it’s about the scale of things. I have actually seen properties that ask electric car owners notify them, and charge if they use an excessive amount.

Charging your phone, you’d probably struggle to use more than 10p of electricity over a week’s stay.

If I have a 30KWh battery in my car, and charge half of it a night for 6 nights, that’s £30 in electric.
It’s possibly not theft, more akin to leaving the oven on constantly, but it’s cheeky as fuck to do it without checking first.

Additionally, a property that hasn’t ever considered electric car charging may not have electrics that stand up to hours of 3KW+ draw on top of the base load.

I’m not sure it is theft. But I’d certainly ask the owner before doing it as an act of politeness