How would someone go about proving that floor 1 of a 2 floor apartment is stealing electricity?

Question

I live in an apartment above a business. We’ve noticed that the electric bills are a lot higher the more they use the space below us.

Assuming we watch the meter to see if, when we turn everything off, we are still “using electricity” who would we contact in order to be able to properly show that they are using our electricity?

Would we talk to the electric company? The police?

And assuming we proved this and took these people to court, what might we be entitled to?

Our entire electric bills from the time we lived there? Or would it have to be proved somehow that they’ve been stealing the electricity since then?

Any help at all would be appreciated.

Thanks

Answer 1

Call the Electric company and report it. If you would rather stay anonymous you can. If the company can prove that they stole electricity then they would try recover this money.  How much they have stole from you would be a calculation the electric company would have to do based on average use actual use would be hard to determine

Answer 2

Call the power company and they will check the meter and find out what is going on.

Answer 3

My first real job was for a utility company, and they take a real dim view of electricity thieves. That's who you report it to.

When you do your meter check, turning off everything to see if there's still usage, don't forget that a lot of things in most homes continue to use power when they're off. Most TVs, computers, stereos, programmable thermostats, doorbells, and anything which doesn't lose track of digital time when the power is interrupted (many clocks or appliances which contain clocks, like coffeemakers, microwaves, etc) will draw small amounts of power when they're officially off. You'd have to unplug everything to get no power usage.

Another way to test is to turn the power off (or have an electric company employee turn it off) *at the meter* at a time when the business is open and busy. If they lose anything, they're stealing your power.

Answer 4

Contact your electric utility. Ask them to inspect the electrical connections at the meter. If it checks out there, call an electrician to inspect both outside and inside.

The police can't help you in this matter. It's a matter for civil court.

You wouldn't have to prove they were knowingly stealing the energy. Only that you were paying for their share.

Ultimately, this is your landlord's responsibility. You may have to sue both the LL and your downstairs neighbor to get satisfaction.

Answer 5

This is not a "police" matter.  It is a landlord-tenant matter.  Discuss with your landlord the metering for your apartment.