RPA Tenant Rights Blog » Uncategorized » Building owner stealing electricity from us

Building owner stealing electricity from us

By Geena

After 16 months and wavering volatge and breaker issues I investigated the 2 flat owner occupied house.

There is a powerful wall heater in the building owners apartment and a workshop that is his and all
have been on my Com Ed meter. I checked by unplugging every single outlet im my unit then went into his never locked worskshop and turned on the lights. Sure enough my meter began turning at a good clip.
The electricity is not to code.
They vacated a garden apartment and moved above me so I entered to reset my breaker.
That unit is drunkenly unlocked all the time by the building owners husband.
 This breaker cover 75% of my power in my 1 1/2 bedroom apartment. 
When I reset my breaker a loud and powerful heater  went on in their vacated apartment.
I turned the breaker off and the heater went off. No wonder I had a $90 Com Ed bill instead of $35-40 these cold months.
I calmly approached his wife and asked her and she began yelliing abusively at me to the point I just ran back downstairs.
The husband has been unemployed for yaers and gets drunk nightly and has even pushed me out of my doorway when
I finally got him to remember the faucet hanging out of th counter in my kitchen.
He is vioent and abusive and after that oushing incident I found a $500 dent made with a pipe on my car.
Just today after videoing the meter activity
 I presented them with a very concise and no blame letter that we msut sit down and
 discuss this problem soon.
 My predicition is they will harass me out which I cannot afford at this time. 
The husband is violent and a drunk. He has entered my apartment while I have been away in the past.
I posted the tenants ‘right to entry’ on my door’. That was followed by him breaking a solar light
I had in a planter outside my door.
Same as my last apartment in Pilsen.
I was forced to move into my current apartment from one 3 blocks away in Pilsen because the previous owner
had run up my gas bill by $1000 in a year secretly having 2 immigrants holding apartments on my gas bill.
He had a side business of bringing illegals up from Mexico and bragged about it once.
He is a veteran Chicago Firefighter who only accpets cash rent.
I had to give a check once and he returned it and said ‘CASH ONLY, I DON’T LIKE TAXES’.
End of story: when I presented the previous owner with a pay me in full or I go legal
he came up with the money the next day in the form of a money order.
 If this current scamming couple tells me to get out can I recover moving expenses?
Guess previous tenants got taken too.
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Edited on: Tuesday, February 19th, 2013 3:49 pm
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One Response to “Building owner stealing electricity from us”

My response: (We welcome stories, examples, explanations, answers and a touch of your personality)
 

Mike

February 19th, 2013 6:29 pm

I am sorry to hear about your situation. I guess you never had the chance to do a background check on your current landlords, judging by the haste in which you left your recent apartment. So anyway, let’s break down your situation into bits. For the issue on electricity, I think you should let the professionals handle it. Call your local electric company and report the problem. They will send some of their people out to check and confirm your suspicions. They might also be able to tell you as to how much you have been overcharged with so you could ask for a refund. Besides, you wouldn’t want your landlord to know about the trespassing that you repeatedly did. They could sue for that. Next, call the police about the harassment. And lastly, can you move to a safer neighborhood? Your previous landlord transports immigrants, your current landlords are a mess…what kind of landlords will you have next? Now if you can’t get refunded for shouldering extra electricity costs and the harassment still does not stop, you can file a complaint against your landlord. RPA has that option.

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