I'm still waiting to close on my house due to a delay on the seller's end. I thought I would be closing tomorrow. Disappointing, but I soldier on.
In the meantime, I sent a friend out there. This friend has some serious handyman skills. I'm beginning to find out how serious his handyman skills are, because he discovered some of the neighbors were apparently STEALING ELECTRICITY from the house. He left me details in a phone message but I haven't been able to get in touch with him to find out more. I strongly suspect it involved some kind of weird, low-hanging line in the back yard.
I had WONDERED what the heck that was. It looked electrical, but due to the way it was strung I thought, huh, must be cable. But it was hooked to the METER BOX. Well, now I know.
So I phoned Juley Viger to let her know and pass it on to the seller. I'll get more details when I can talk to my friend, Scott, tomorrow. But in the meantime I'm looking for a 24-hr. phone line to call the power company and inform them of this.
Electricity theft. I wonder if this is going to be the next negative North Minneapolis trend.
try this: Electric Emergency/Power Outage 1-800-895-1999
ReplyDeletefound here
good luck!
-c
Do you have pictures of the meter box hack?
ReplyDeleteNo, I don't have pictures, and it's a shame. They used multiple cords spliced together, so it would have looked soooooo good in color.
ReplyDeleteMore on this to follow in a subsequent blog entry, with the police report number, etc.
I have been working on this "electricity theft" crap all day, and I feel like I work for XCel Energy right now, because of how much time I've spent on it.
But, oh boy, trust me when I say some heavy shit is rolling down a very large hill. I had a cop out there AND two building inspectors. XCel Energy notified the city this morning.
You don't even own the property yet. Why are you being burdened with dealing with it?
ReplyDeleteWell, the owner is a bank far away and aloof...the real estate company is equally distant and out-of-touch...and if I don't deal with it, the place might burn down from the illegal electric tapping before I ever get a chance to buy it, and I WANT TO BUY IT.
ReplyDeleteAlso, dealing with this is part of my effort to clean up the neighborhood. You'll notice I started a blog about the North Side and I don't even own property there until a few more days from now, and yet here I am blogging.
A further update will come on this issue. The house (416 30th Ave. N.) which stole the electricity from my (future) property TWICE is now stealing it off a pole in the next yard. (A yard that is filled with piles of garbage, I might add, and I hope to get pictures before it gets cleaned up)
So I was out there today AGAIN. Called the police, city inspectors, and XCel AGAIN when I saw "416" was now tapping off the pole in the yard of another house, the "backyard full of garbage" house. The wire runs from the pole, over the top of their screen door, and directly into their house, bypassing the meter which isn't even THERE.
At least two small children in the yard. Part of my feels bad, because these illegal renters have small children and are clearly desperate to get by. But I'll feel a whole lot worse if their crazy, dangerous electrical tapping causes the fiery death of those small children I saw in the yard.
And then while I was driving around the block...I found YET ANOTHER illegal tap. This was an old tap, running from the pole behind the house at 415 31st Avenue N. to the house itself and also two neighboring houses...but those houses are now empty and the lines do not appear to be "hot."
Such a tangle of lines! A gigantic black noodle ball of lines at the base of the pole, and then lines running all over the ground and hopping into other yards. Every time I stepped it was like, OH SHIT, that's another line and I'm stepping on it. Glad it's not hot.
I don't consider my efforts a burden. I consider this part adventure, part civic duty. I might just become part "Johnny Electric" and find every last illegal tap on the North Side. Clearly, the people doing this are unsavory characters involved in blatant criminal activity, so reporting this stuff can have a wide-ranging impact.
But like I told XCEl today on the phone: I feel like I WORK for you. I don't mind this, I consider it my civic duty, but honestly I'd be a little more motivated if there were an actual REWARD.
Hint, hint, XCel.
Hi.
ReplyDeleteI'm currently stealing power from a for-sale, empty home close to mine in my neighborhood. The power company mixed up my name with my dead fathers name and then cut my power 12 days into the month. It is now the 19th, 1 day before my birthday, and if I didn't have this cord I would have gone insane long before this. The power company is going to fix their problem Monday, and i'm hoping no one tries to take me to jail over this, but unfortunately as power companies put more and more of a credit strangehold on every last one of us these things are going to start happening in more understandable situations. Of course, hacking the meter and not just using an extension cord is retarded, and I hope they fall under some legal consequences for taking it for granted. Turn your power on if you want your house to run like it has power! In any event, Good Luck with the house!