When I received my first full month bill, I was being charged for 2,493 kilowatts. I was shocked that month, and each month from December through June 1. My problem was to find out why my family's kilowatts went up 147%, just by moving into this rental house. My previous house never exceeded 1000 kilowatts per month. I had to balance all my variables. I was now living in a much smaller home, with all of my appliances from my previous home. This still didn't answer my question as to why the kilowatts tripled.
I then realized I needed to find the source of the electrical usage. I first created a list of every item in the house that pulled electricity. I wrote down each item with the volts and amps that each item would use when turned on and running, and the approximate amount of time that my family used that appliance each month. I found the average consumption of each electrical device in the house. I used the formula watts x hours = watts, then to convert to kilowatts I had to divide that number by 1000. I did this for each object in the house. My total usage came out to be 913 Kilowatts per month.By doing this, it confirmed that something was very wrong with my bill.
This didn't answer why I was being billed for over 2,000 kilowatts each month. I then purchased all new light bulbs for the entire house, all energy efficient fluorescent bulbs with a maximum wattage of 15. I thought that this would help lower my kilowatt usage, but it didn't.
I decided to start reading the meter on an hourly basis. I did this long tedious project for one full month. I had to write down each item that was pulling electricity during that hour, then read the meter. I found many inconsistencies by reading the meter for that month. My daily averages were alarming, one day it was 27, the next day it was 66 kilowatts used in a day. To be specific, I had three items on inside my house and the meter read 3 kilowatts that hour. The following hour I kept the exact same three items on and the meter then read 6 kilowatts used during that second hour. I needed to know why the meter was fluctuating so much even when the variables remained the same.
One day during this daily reading of the meter project, my family and I went out of town. Upon returning home, I read the meter to see how low the meter reading would be for the 22 hours that we were gone. The first thing I noticed was that the meter was spinning as fast as a cd player, indicating a lot of electricity being pulled. I entered the house to find two ceiling fans on, and the fridge was plugged in. Yet somehow we amazingly used up 34 kilowatts for the 22 hours that we were gone out of town. I knew this usage was impossible because the ceiling fans were only 54 watts each, so the max output for them for 22 hours was 1.18 kilowatts. The fridge only runs about 25% of the time as it is new, so I figured it would have used up 6.33 kilowatts for 22 hours. These two items only added up to 7.51 kilowatts for 22 hours, not 34 as the meter read.
I called WPS to have them check their meter for any problems. The WPS worker came and had me turn off all electricity at the fuse box, so I pulled all the fuses. He then said the meter was working fine, but there was still a small amount of electricity being pulled according to the meter. He couldn't explain why this was happening, but he said the meter was working fine. Also he couldn't check the wiring in the house as it wasn't my house, it was just a rental property. He also said that the amount of electricity being pulled from this residence was the average to power a small business.
Math pointed me in the right direction to figure out how much actual usage my family used, yet the problem was still unresolved. The total costs for electric and gas at the rental house calculated to $8,356.05 for 3 years. I divided this amount by the 42 months that we lived there to give me an average monthly bill of $198.95. My previous house average was only $80.52 per month. An astounding 147% increase. I brought the problem to the attention of my landlord who lived next door. The landlord owned the rental that I was living in, and seven other houses on the block. He also had two machine sheds and a barn, which his father used daily to run equipment such as welding equipment and an air compressor.
I showed the landlord proof that my monthly average tripled just by moving into the house. He sent over an electrician and his father the next day. They both went into the basement together and shut the power off to the entire house. The electrician told the landlord's father to go upstairs and make sure everything is off. So the landlord's father came upstairs, walked outside, and rushed down the road to his machine shed, then he promptly returned. When he returned to my house the electrician turned on the electricity and came upstairs. That was all; the electrician told us that there was no electricity leaving the house.
This seemed strange to me that he would say no electricity was leaving the house, and then he was done. I didn't want to know if electricity was leaving the house, I wanted to know what the problem was inside of the house. Why did my family's usage triple just by moving into that house? The electrician was in the house for fifteen minutes and all he did was turn off the electricity, while the landlord's father left the house to turn electricity off at the old machine shed.
I immediately wondered why the landlord's father went to turn off electricity for the electrician at the old machine shed. I immediately became suspicious of foul play. The electrician was obviously not hired to look for excessive electrical usage inside the house. So I asked the electrician a few questions, trying to point out to him that the problem still remained. I asked how it is possible for a family to be gone for 22 hours and use 34 kilowatts with only ceiling fans and the fridge plugged in. He looked shocked, but couldn't provide me with an answer.
Then I asked why the meter was spinning as fast as a cd player and what I should do about it if I see it happening again. He said that the electric company should check out the meter. I let him know that they already checked the meter twice, once on the old meter, and then on the new meter system that was installed on every house in the city, and it was working fine.By simply asking these questions to the electrician, it made the landlord's father very mad, to the point where he started swearing. He said that if we didn't like the big electric bills then we should move out.
His reaction was shocking to me, why would he react so crazy if it was a simple electrical issue inside the house? Wouldn't a normal reaction be of concern, to find out the answer to the problem? A truly concerned landlord would have had the electrician enter the house again to find the reason for the triple kilowatt usage increase. This could have been a fire hazard, and concern is the normal reaction, was the excessive usage due to some faulty wiring or bad appliance? This remains to be found out. Yet his reaction to the problem was crystal clear; it showed me that he had something to hide. His reaction, and the fact that he went down to the old machine shed to turn something off and then came back to the house immediately, showed that he was guilty of theft.
So I found that the electricity was being stolen from the house I rented.
Upon moving out of the house, WPS said my best option would be to file a complaint with the Public Service Commission. So I did, yet the Public Service Commission doesn't investigate thievery by the landlord, they investigate WPS. They had WPS go to the house to check the meter, which would be the third time the meter was checked. WPS found nothing wrong with the meter.By complaining to the Public Service Commission which is an extension of Consumer Protection Agency, it resolved nothing. They were able to tell me that the meter was working fine, which I already knew.
But the problem still remained, and I'm sure that the new tenants also have very unusually high kilowatts on their bill. WPS informed me that if the landlord was stealing, it would be a civil matter between me and him. Now why wouldn't WPS just tell me that in the first place instead of having me file a complaint with the Public Service Commission which only lead WPS to recheck the meter.
The meter isn't the problem; electricity is being pulled from somewhere else in the house. I should have chosen to move out immediately after seeing that first WPS bill. It would have saved me $8,356.05 for the 3 years that I lived there for electrical and gas costs total. A 147% increase in utilities by moving to a much smaller house, with my same appliances.
Dates Yearly Electrical Cost
Dec. 26- Dec. 20 $1,660.13
Dec. 20- Dec. 22 $1,709.72
Dec. 22- Dec. 21 $1,556.71
Dec. 21- June 1 $703.65 (Six months)
$5,630.21 Total for 3 years electrical costs.
Dates Yearly Gas Cost
Dec. 26- Dec. 20 $393.42
Dec. 20- Dec. 22 $874.04
Dec. 22- Dec. 21 $858.47
Dec. 21- June 1 $599.91 (Six months)
$2,725.84 Total for 3 years gas costs.
The other neighbors who rented from him, also complained that when he lost electricity in his machine shed, he would rummage around in their basement for a while. And another neighbor who rented from him said that her utilities were the same as her rent payment, $650 per month. Something is clearly wrong.
This is just the electricity that I mentioned. For the 3 1/2 years there was a gas smell. The landlord told me not to call the utility company because there was 'no gas leak'. But I ended up calling the utility company and they found a huge gas leak, this was after eight months of my complaints to the landlord. Then a few days before I decided to move out, I was outside on the front porch and smelled gas again.
I didnt hesitate, I called the utility company. The utility man asked me if this had ever been fixed before. I said yes, 3 years ago the utility company said they fixed this. He said it looked like it never was fixed. He went to his truck where he was writing on his clipboard, then the landlord pulled in on his semi truck. He stopped and spoke to the utility man, and asked what he was doing there. The utility man told him there was a gas leak. The landlord said, "i must have hit it with the backhoe." Then he drove off towards his house.
If he thought he hit a gas meter with a backhoe, wouldnt he be human and call the utility company himself to get it checked out, or was he just waiting for us to die. We had been gassed for 3 1/2 years, my entire family had extreme medical problems including unexplained seizures. I think that the house is a hazard to anyone. Not to mention the entire neighborhood of his rentals has their septic systems all hooked up to this one house, then it pumps to the city sewer. The problem with that is, the smell of methane, sulfur smell in the basement it is extremely strong.
Finally after I moved out, I felt better for the first time in 3 1/2 years. My ill health improved, and I look back as it was a nightmare.
The landlord then tried to sue me for a list of lies which I was able to easily prove him wrong on each detail. I couldnt believe he would even try to make up a list of lies when I could sue him for millions on this matter. My hamster died due to the gas leak alone! Imagine what it was doing to my family. This landlord should not be able to rent to anyone.
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