Real Estate Question - Ongoing Rent Issues

I'm having some difficulty getting information regarding issues with the rent payments I have been making and hopefully some of you may be able to assist or point me in the right direction.

I do apologize for the extensive length.

Here's the deal:

I'm living with a roommate in a condo, paying rent to an owner who lives out of the country and I've never directly talked or had contact with. I've lived here since August, but did not pay rent (first 3 months) until late last month. Reason was we had no clue where to deposit the rent.

We had contacted the owner's representative who gave us terrible information and were still lost. Finally we decided if he wanted the money, he could contact us.

He did get his representative to call us angrily demanding rent. The representative is a realtor full-time and she made it a point to say it wasn't her responsibility to be a landlord and collect rent.

Fine. I got the account information and deposited the 3 months rent and had it taken care of. Legally we couldn't be charged a late fee (nor did we even necessarily have to pay rent yet) because...we never had a glass turn table. in the microwave. It wasn't a big deal to us, but they made it seem as if it "saved" us from paying late fees.

(Still haven't gotten the glass table FWIW).

So now here's the current issue:

Power bills are astronomical. Roughly $230-$330 per month. I'm barely home, and manage to sleep on a friend's couch 4-5 days a week and don't use much electricity. My roommate is here more often, but still can't fathom how the amount is so high.

However, the air conditioning is running basically nonstop, ~22-23 hours/day. I hate it since it's freezing, but even when I try to turn the thing off, the fan is still circulating air (it's a high-tech A/C unit that I can't figure out how to use properly).

My roommate is under the impression A/C is covered by the owner. I do recall it was mentioned that A/C was included by the realtor showing the apartment, however that could have meant there is an actual A/C unit included versus having A/C paid monthly.

Basically I don't see how it's possible to differentiate A/C or fan from other expenses in the power bill and my roommate is an absolute idiot.

Has anyone ever heard of A/C included monthly?

I think I did figure out why the system was running nonstop: the dehumidifier was set to 40%, which I suppose meant the system had to maintain that constantly in a 1500 sq. ft apartment. I upped it to 50% and so far it's not on so much.

The other issue is whether or not to pay the last months rent, since we have the deposit paid and if we can't get a hold of him now, what luck will we have in a few months? Legally we probably have to pay it and wait until the apartment is checked for disrepair.

Essentially this owner hasn't given us his contact information and it all seems a bit sketchy.

Any advice would be much appreciated.