Wouldn’t it be funny if he plugs the device in and the electric company turns on him for running service to an address that has been terminated for non-payment, then the landlord kicks him out for creating a fire hazard by allowing the co-ed to run her apartment through a clearly undersized cable?
So SenorBeef who could have had the cops see what the neighbor has plugged in and ended up with a co-ed who’s rich from burning CDs and selling pot… ends up homeless and with a criminal record. Of course, then he looses his job and ends up living in a cardboard box in an alley where the USES AN EXTENSION CORD to recharge his ipad so he can post the results on SDMB.
I say it has all the makings of a 3 part made for TV movie.
IT’s a long shot, I realize, but if he were doing something illegal, mightn’t your fingerprints on the cord be a very bad thing?
I still think it’s some poor sot out of work who si tryign to keep his food from spoiling. But he’s a poor sot wihtout the decency to talk to you before he did this, so likely a conscienceless or addicted poor sot, and therefore dangerous.
Police. Really. They are all about addressing crime.
SenorBeef, you may want to consider notifying the management and/or the police before plugging in your device. They may have experience with this sort of thing and can advise you if your actions would alter their case against your neighbor. I would also try to have a house-sitter while you’re gone. At the very least someone to check your place at random times during the day/night.
I don’t really understand why you want to know how much power he’s stealing. If you just use a kill-a-watt type device and note how much it is pulling that’s not exactly evidentiary quality, it’d just be your word that he was using that much. Even with a picture of the device’s reading, it’d just prove he was using that much the moment you took the reading. You have no way to know at all how much he’s been using since he hooked this rig up.
I also don’t understand people that want to tell the landlord or police first. The first thing you should have done is call your power company and say “my neighbor is stealing my electricity.” The power company is a heavily regulated monopoly and will have very standardized rules for dealing with this stuff. Most utilities have entire departments that specialize in handling theft of service issues. Once the power company is informed they will know the absolute best way to proceed, and will probably advise you if you need to call the police yourself or your land lord. It’s possible they’ll handle all of that for you.
The important thing about getting the power company involved is they probably have far more experience with power theft than your land lord or any single police officer. They will come to your house and know exactly what to document, and exactly how to respond to insure this guy gets in the most trouble possible.
Well, if its a small amount of power and it also appears that the neighbors meter is off or barely moving (whether the neighbors AC is still running might give another hint). Then its just some poor desperate neighbor probably just trying to get by.
In which case, the sane thing to do is probably just tell the neighbor to knock it off and or get the landlord to tell them to knock it off and ask for 20 bucks or something.
If a buttload of power is being drawn AND the neighbors power is still on and sucking some serious juice then it could be a growing operation or at the very least is major theft without any mitigating circumstances.
In that case, you probably want to call the police and electric company at the same time. If you call the landlord first the neighbor could get rid of the evidence before the cops get there/get a warrant if so warranted. That could lead to pissing off a criminal neighbor without getting RID of said criminal neighbor. Thats not a position I would want to be in.
Thats why I would want an idea of how much power is being drawn. How much they stole from me would be irrelevant for the most part.
Of course by NOW I would have looked at the damn meters and felt the cord to see how warm it is.
I’m not quite sure why the OP should get a housesitter when he goes away for a month. Couldn’t he do what a lot of us do when we’re going to be out of town for a while… and flip ALL the breakers? At least you won’t be paying to run the fridge and AC for a month while you’re out of town. If I were going away for a month, I’d empty my fridge and cut off all the breakers.
I worked as a construction inspector for a while. One job I was on required the contractor to dig around the water main. It was right on the line between two towns. They did, in fact, keep a 3 man crew (plus me) sitting around idle for over 4 hours, while the two towns dithered over which one could give us the explicit permission.
This situation might well be equally ambiguous, thus idling a crew for a while until ownership is straightened out.
I think that you are falling into a trap that many others in this thread have fallen. The power companies spend a lot of effort to recognize and counteract theft of electricity. They are very happy when their efforts get publicity because that helps deter theft.
So they get a reputation of being hard on theft. But only when it occurs on their side of the meter. Once it flows through the meter it is either a civil or criminal situation of which they are not involved. They are not in the habit of policing the customers side of the meter and they would be very reluctant to participate.
I worked for a power company for almost 30 years and while I wasn’t personally involved with theft I had to sit through a lot of “informational meetings” on it. Every one of them centered on unmetered theft. At no time were our employees advised on handling theft between customers.
Everything (equipment, wiring, breaker panel) on your side of the meter is your problem. Whether excess usage is caused by faulty equipment or theft is also your problem.
I fhe addresses the problem and then goes out of town, goodness only knows what mischief this bad neighbor could wreak on his property while he’s out of town.
Speaking of which - be sure to take photos of each room and any expensive items before you leave town. And when you talk to the police, let them know this is coming and it’s making you nervous about the thief.
Got my power bill late yesterday. July was around $95, August around $130. I may have ran the AC a little more in August, but definitely not by that margin.
I’ll be able to get someone to check my house every day, but the fact that I’m almost gone will be a determining factor as far as doing something really aggressively like pulling hard on the cord. If I were here I’d probably lean that way, but too much potential for trouble otherwise. So this story will probably end up being anticlimactic, sorry. Probably just have the landlord to tell them to knock it off and that’ll be that. Unless they view going to the landlord as an act of aggression that they have to respond to by doing further harm - in which case I’m going to blow them up.
Let’s say it a neighbor that has just had the electricity cut off. And they are just drawing a couple hundred watts to run the bare neccessities. Their “free” power gets cut off too but they don’t get evicted. Chances are now much greater IMO that they will set the place on fire being idiots with candles, lanterns, camping stoves and the like.
I’m in both the “just cut him off” and the “I’m curious how much power he’s using” camps. I also think unplugging it to plug in a power meter will 1) not get you an accurate reading, since many devices will reset to standby mode if power is cut temporarily (e.g. PC’s, TV’s, stereos, electronically-controlled AC units), and 2) if your intent is to use this measurement as evidence for the purpose of recouping costs, then admitting to plugging it back in to allow him to continue stealing power just so you can monitor it kind of weakens your case.
Luckily, the solution to all this is very easy and doesn’t require waiting for a power monitor to arrive: Don’t change anything for an hour. Go read your meter at the beginning and then again at the end of the hour, to find out how much power you’re using right now. Then go unplug him, and read the change in the meter for the next hour. Now you know how much power he was sucking, and he’s cut off. If that outlet is on its own circuit and you don’t plan to use it, flip the breaker so he can’t just plug back in. I’d probably also tie the free end of the cord around a note that says “don’t do that” and throw it up on his balcony as well, but that’s just me.
And since funny but not particularly realistic fantasy revenge scenarios are obligatory, the one I thought of is installing a dimmer switch on that outlet and just screwing with it whenever you walk by. disclaimer you should not be modifying wiring in a rental without permission and installing a dimmer on a receptacle has got to be a code violation anyway come on folks it’s a joke lighten up francis void where prohibited
Oh, and I agree with whoever suggested that it might not even be your power he’s stealing. Maybe that’s on your meter and maybe it’s not. Maybe it’s on your meter but he thinks it’s not. There are many possibilities that, in my mind, change how malicious and dirtbaggy this action is and how personally offended you should be by it. Maybe all the patio/balcony outlets are on “common” power, and he knows this, and his is broken, so he figures there’s no harm in plugging into yours, but was rude by not bothering to ask permission. A transgression for sure (and a semi-permanent extension cord running up the wall should definitely be nixed), but not “stealing power” if that’s the situation. Regardless, I’d definitely find out if that outlet is actually on your power bill before doing anything.
According to this page, a Kill-A-Watt can show cumulative power usage, so it isn’t just an instantaneous reading; if you plugged it in for a day, that would be representative of a day’s worth of power usage. Of course, we still don’t know how long it has been there.
I don’t see why you don’t at least phone the local police’s non-emergency number and ask them to look around when it’s a slow day. This gives you documentation in case anything happens when you cut the people off / report them to the landlord / start Tarzan-swinging from the cord.
And yeah, report 'em to the landlord. Chances are, the landlord would like such people gone as well. I suspect there’s something in the lease about “criminal activity = gonesville”, and I suspect the people are paying the rent late by now as well.
I’d just unplug the damn thing. It sends the neighbor a message that you know he’s stealing your electricity AND stops him from stealing more of your money. If he plugs it in again, then he’s got a lot of chutzpah.
disclaimer you should not be modifying wiring in a rental without permission and installing a dimmer on a receptacle has got to be a code violation anyway come on folks it’s a joke lighten up francis void where prohibited