<prompt> Human: NEWEST UPDATE 78: Today I got a call that the electric company investigators were outside my door. They showed up unannounced which is good because then they get to see everything as it is. I had no lights on, no ac on, nothing, which helped prove my case even more. They went down to the basement and turned my panel off and of course, the business ac went off too. My panel was even labeled with breakers for his business including parking lot lights. So my case is proven and from here, they call the landlord and he will have to fix it. My bill is his responsibility until he fixes it. I am just so grateful they came out and took it all seriously. Now, hopefully my landlord will be a decent guy and not retaliate. I will formally update as soon as this all works out. UPDATE 623: I just got off the phone with the power company. The rep reluctantly started an investigation and someone will call me with follow up questions, no idea when that will be, but I would guess within a couple days. My bill is on hold so its not my full responsibility or his responsibility until they figure out whats going on. UPDATE 622: The response by uTube_Amp the one with the links helped solve my problem! Turns out this is not called stealing electricity but is called Foreign Load. State law requires my electric company to investigate and immediately turn my account to the landlord because he becomes responsible for the full bill since its impossible to know how much I was being overcharged. He is probably also responsible for the full past bills. I will call tomorrow and use the correct terminology and start an investigation. I should be able to just point out my inconsistent bills with strange spikes correlating to landlords business hours and probably dont have to directly point the finger at him. Im just updating for anyone else with this problem who searches reddit. I will also just edit some non-important but possibly identifying info from this post. Thanks for all the help, rpersonalfinance!Also, more than a few people have commented saying I should talk to the landlord because this may be a mistake instead of him purposefully defrauding me. Even if I give him the benefit of assuming its a mistake though, by telling him about it and asking him to reimburse me for the 400 extra Ive paid so far, Id be relying on his good will to pay it back. Because once I alert him, he can easily fix it and then I have no actual hard proof besides my bloated bills during his business hours.I just think its actually more fair to call the electric company and ask them to identify the source of my huge bill. That way Im covered because they will have proof and the only penalty for him will be that he will have to pay for that electric. He wont be charged or fined or anything. I want to do the right thing and it seems best to have the impartial third party electric co. come and see exactly whats going on.---Original Post:I knew something was wrong with my electric bill when my usage more than quadrupled in the last month. Even running my air conditioner 247 wouldnt cause that and I have barely used it at all. This year, with it getting hot, my normal usage of 14 kwday jumped to 64 kwday despite low usage and not using air conditioning. I called the electric company and they noticed my usage spikes during the exact hours the business downstairs is open. Its a drastic usage change...at exactly opening time my usage spikes to at least 4-6xs normal and it stays that high until the exact moment of closing time. My bill this month will go from an average of 80 to over 300 due to these spikes. He is definitely using his air conditioners and has them rigged up to my meter.So, now that I know this, what do I do? My electric company said I have to confront my landlord but that doesnt sound right. Best case, he will unplug the units, plead ignorance and pay me what Ive overpaid. But hes a schmuck so its more likely he will unplug the unit and deny it. Then I cant possibly recoup all the bills Ive already paid. I also cant find out what else I may be paying for. How do I go about figuring out how much he should pay for the back usage? The usage changes per hour so its not very cut and dry. Im also not a lawsuit happy person so Im not talking lawsuits or anything dramatic, but shouldnt there be some compensation for being defrauded for a year by your landlord? Im extra pissed about this because being unemployed, I sacrifice my comfort for a lower bill. So Ive been sitting here sweating in 90 degrees only to find out Im paying to cool off my landlords entire business!tl;dr: My landlord who runs a business downstairs hooked into my electricity and Ive been paying for his air conditioners and probably more for about a year. Electric company says its my job to confront him.Assistant: Here are other people dealing with the same thing and attorneys replies: Human: AHA! This is it! I read your links and also looked around the site. Came up with this My electric company even has a web page specifically about this! I just had no idea it was called foreign load until reading it on that site. It says: A residential rental unit is considered not individually metered when wiring from other parts of the building, another apartment, or from common use areas is connected to the meter serving that particular rental unit.This is known as foreign load. The owner of the property is responsible for the utility service for that meter even if there is a lease or agreement involved.By law, utilities MUST put the account in the owners name effective the day they become aware of the foreign load when any of these situations occur:1. the utility finds the foreign load as a result of a field investigation, which is usually requested by the tenant ratepayerSo, I just need to call my electric company back and talk to a different rep and specifically mention foreign load. They should start an investigation and after some searching to clarify the vague language, it turns out the landlord should be on the hook for my entire electric bill going all the way back since its too convoluted to separate out the different usages. No matter what, seems like this will be properly taken care of. Thank you for taking the time to look up those links--that website was great in finding the exact answer to my problem. Assistant: Sad that you already called the power company and they came to the conclusion that the power usage coincided with the business hours, yet they didnt recognize this issue on their own. Theyre the damn experts, why the hell should you have to call back and hope you get another person that is smarter. Glad you found an answer though, Id like to see a follow up to see how the landlord reacted.Human: It is sad. I called with the question of what could be causing my usage to be reported so high and explained that I havent used any air conditioners and was purposely using less than normal electricity. Her answer was that the weather has been hotter. I repeated that I havent used my air conditioner all week yet usage was 3xs normal and she just repeated about the weather as if she didnt realize that weather alone doesnt make a bill increase, its the amount of cooling or heating usage. It was frustrating because I had done the math of amps to kilowatt hours of my units and explained that even 247 use wouldnt raise my bill this high but she didnt respond to any logic at all. The only help I got from her was when I finally said that Im unemployed and am sitting here not using my air on a 90 degree day just to save money--then she had a pity tone and said she was sorry for that. Then out of that pity she looked at the daily use graphs and found the 11am-midnight spikes. It bothered me that I got nowhere with facts and logic and had to resort to pity to get a real answer. And I will definitely update!  <response>: Fuck it, file a complaint against her too. The next person will get hisher problem solved quicker. 