I came home this afternoon from work and I thought "Damn, the condo is quiet." Usually, in any inhabited building, there is some sort of noise. The hum of the furnace, the fridge or in my case, the battery backup systems for the computers. But none of that sound. At first, didn't think anything of it. Then I heard am impatient "beep-beep-beep-beep", the sound of the low battery alarm on a APC UPS.
So the electric was out.
I got out the phone book, called the phone company from my cell and asked them why. They said they shut me off for non payment. WTF? I just moved here, and they hadn't sent me a bill yet. They told me "We've been sending your bills to Vegas just like you told us to". I explained to them that I specifically told them NOT to send bills there, but rather it was an alternate address that I MAY have them send bills to in the future. I have a MBE box in Vegas, when I travel, they forward important mail to me when I am on the road. Then they also said "And you never sent the deposit of $280, either." (Which they prolly made me pay since I refused to give them my socialist slave state number). I said, "Yeah, I know. You never sent me the form I was supposed to send it back with that you told me to expect."
Being that this was my first bill and with the holidays, I figured they were slow getting them out. After all, AT&T hasn't gotten me my first bill yet, either. I even called my landlord and asked him if he was getting the bills a couple of days ago, he said no as I did expect it very soon. It never occurred to me that they would be sending it exactly where I told them not to send it.
They put me on hold, claimed to listen to the call recording of me ordering service and came back on the line and told me that I told them to send the bills there, and that if I wanted my service on, I would need to pay the bill ($17) plus the deposit ($280) plus a disconnection fee ($100) plus a reconnection fee ($100). Furthermore, since they shut me off at 3PM on Friday and I didn't get home until 5 PM to find out about it and they close at 6PM, I had only an hour to drive all the way into the city, get money and come back and pay them. Not gonna happen with traffic.
Then the bitch explained that if I didn't pay them by 6 PM tonight, they wouldn't turn me on until Monday even if I paid over the weekend. In most states thats illegal, going to have to look into the situation here. Now thats a dirty trick in my book, even AT&T shuts you off on Monday most of the time so that they have all week to collect their damn fees. Add on top of it that this wasn't my fault, and it was too much to take. So basically, they mailed the bill to the wrong fucking address and they didn't give a damn, sucks to be you. This is the kind of service you get when the power company is allowed to have a monopoly.
The power company pissed me off so bad I considered tying a chain to the power box that serves the whole block, the other end to my van and testing out my new high performance transmission's low gear. But I didn't. first, I went around the the power meters, as sometimes they just throw your breaker and all you have to do is turn it back on to "reconnect" your service. No dice, they had already removed the entire fucking power meter and covered it with a blank. So I decided I'd use the power inverters in the van and power what needed powered off those.
Now, at my condo, outside my front door, we all have an external storage closet type thing. I went to the storage closet outside the front door to look for an extension cord to run from the van inside to get the UPS units on AC power using the inverters. As I went into the unit, I hit the light switch out of habit. Surprisingly, the light lit up, which I was not expecting at all. After all, they removed my fucking meter. After a moment, an idea dawned on me. And a grin burst out from ear to ear, and here is what I looked like:
If my meter was removed and my power off... then who was paying for the light in my storage closet? And as that thought came back to me, I stepped outside and into the night. I noticed something I hadn't noticed before: the whole front of the building was dark. None of the outside lights were on. They all worked last night. And every other night. But not tonight. This was no coincidence, I thought and as I thought about this, I didn't notice but I began humming the Grinch song... and my smile kept growing and growing.
What was going on here is I was paying for everyone's outside lights. Our HOA is very specific about this, although the lights are community property, we are to replace the bulbs if they burn out and they are to pay for the power.
It was then, that I saw the solution to my power problem. I was going to exact a charge upon my HOA for their crimes against me (stealing my power). I went down to Wal-Mart and picked up one of those adapters that turns a light socket into a power outlet, ran my extension cord out to my closet, carefully concealing it behind the bushes and than inside the condo I put a couple of splitters in and plugged in two space heaters, my radio, the main line for each of the 4 APCs and several lights. Then I ran another cord into the kitchen and plugged the fridge in.
One good deed does deserve another, right?
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So, I would like to offer a great big, huge FUCK YOU to both the power company and the HOA. Both of you are going to get whats coming to you. The HOA is gonna have some very angry condo owners soon, as I went to the next building over, and with the permission of the owner of that unit, threw his main breaker and sure enough the whole front of his building went dark. So the HOA is making the person in Unit 3 of every building pay for the "community" lights which we all also pay an HOA assessment for. Pretty damn slick. But the secret is out now and I am going to make sure the whole complex knows our HOA is screwing us over.
And when I do finally get around to paying that bill and the bullshit deposit, its going to be paid in pennies. And then we'll see about getting those fraudulent disconnect/reconnect fees taken care of.
Motherfuckers, you may have won the first battle (and only because you had the element of surprise on your side) but motherfuckers I will win every other battle and the fucking war.
