What are apartment renters in Austin paying monthly for electricity?

Question

I've recently moved into an apartment after being a (begrudging) home owner for the last decade or so. I was very surprised to get my first $200 electric bill, followed by another $190 bill the next month, when I lived in the dark, turned the thermostat up to 81 degrees, and kept everything turned off. I was also surprised to find a pool of water under the air conditioning unit. Management seems to be stone-walling me on getting back to me regarding energy efficiency, a company that tests for energy efficiency has told me that they won't come out because I don't own the property, and I'm not sure where I can go to ask my questions and get help with my rights in this situation. Anyone out there with ideas?

Answer 1

I had a similar thing happen to me once. It was Odd but one day my neighbor couldn't get anything to work in the garage, he checked all the breakers and they was working, Just for the heck of it, I went and check my breaker box and low and behold, there was the blown breaker, all this time I was paying for there garage, it was connected to my GFI bathroom outlet too. so sometime wire do get crossed.I could have fought it, but between the lawyers and finger pointing between the electric co. and the apartment managers, I did find out my electric was on there bill as well. Try and shut off all your breakers when you leave and when you come home and somebody is complaining about electric outage, then you know who is using your electric. I moved soon after and got all my deposit back.