Studio Journal Episode 13 – fun electric bill issues

Please explain if this makes any sense to you.  I got my final bill from my electric company at the old apartment.  According to them, my daily electric use quadrupled in my last ½ month, despite being pretty consistent for 4 years.  I emailed customer service telling them that there is no way I would pay the bill unless they could come up with some rational explanation for how this could be the case.  If anything, it should be much less since most of my electricity-using belongings were packed, including my TV and computer. 

So I just got the explanation.  They didn’t check the meter when I moved out.  They checked it at the end of the month as usual and billed me for half and the new resident for half.  WTF ?!?!?  How is that possibly fair?  If I was not paying attention, I would have paid for a whole lot of electricity use that was not mine.  It probably wasn’t the new resident either – I bet that the complex had the A/C cranked during the in-between day when they were getting it ready for the new person.  They also probably plugged in various commercial strength cleaning appliances and whatnot.

To their credit, they did make an adjustment.  They used my history as a benchmark times the number of days and billed me for what I probably used.  I am sure this is higher than what I really used, but much closer than the first bill.  So shout out to them for at least a little intelligence.

I also just got the first bill in my new place.  This one was double my usual.  But at least I know why this time.  My realtor told me that he had the A/C cranked for 48-hours in advance of my move-in.  The first day was to help the new paint dry.  The second was so that the apartment would be comfortable when I moved in.  Of course, the movers had the door propped open, so all of that A/C was gone in 5-minutes.  In theory, I told the electric company I was moving in at 5pm on the 1^st, so that is when the billing should have started.  But I am just going to swallow this one and pay it in full without complaint.  I only have so many battles in me.