Single mum Liz lives in a Northcote cottage, which has no insulation, no heater, and when she moved in, no glass in the bathroom window.

She patched the window herself and the rest wasn’t a huge concern — until winter rolled around.

Armed with two space heaters, she ran them constantly in an effort to keep her and her teenage son, Elliot, warm.

Like most, Liz budgeted for her power bill based on the last quarter, but the space heaters meant the bill was about 250 per cent more than she was prepared for.

So she was faced with a choice: pay the bill, or buy food?

“When you’re trying to budget your income to cover things, first comes rent and next is food and then comes bills,” she said. “I have to put food before bills because I have a growing teenage son.

“I’m a single parent who doesn’t have child support from the child’s other parent and having an unpredictable energy bill is really unsettling.”

Now she’s in a slightly better position this winter and has prepared for a huge spike in power costs, but she feels that minimum standards for rentals, including measures to keep renters warm would be a godsend. There is no requirement for older houses to be insulated in Victoria.

“It’s reasonable to expect that if you are prepared to live in a particular way you should also be prepared to have your tenants live in a reasonable way,” she said. “I’m just talking about insulation and glass in a window.”

The Victorian Council of Social Service and Environment Victoria have renewed lobbying the state government to include a requirement to insulate homes in the raft of new rental laws that are scheduled to be put before parliament before the end of the year. The groups on Monday are launching a petition, signed by 15,000 Victorians, calling for better rental energy efficiency.

VCOSS chief executive Emma King said it would help prevent low-income households becoming trapped in “energy poverty”.

“What it means is poor quality housing is trapping people in energy poverty. If we see really huge power bills that means people have to live a life of sacrifice and hardship and even ill health,” she said. “They’d be much more able to pay their bill if their home had things like insulation and modern heating.

“Energy efficiency and the plight of people living in poverty are inescapably linked.”

The government could also use the requirement to cut pollution, Energy Victoria campaigner Anne Martinelli said.

“Requiring rental homes to have basic measures like insulation is the single most effective action government could take to cut renters’ cost of living, create thousands of good, local jobs, and cut climate pollution,” she said.

Ms Martinelli said the new rental laws were the perfect time to act.

“Victoria is getting left behind on this issue,” she said. “We used to have standards but they lapsed in the 1990s.

“Meanwhile, Queensland and New Zealand have both legislated for rental efficiency standards in the last two years.”