Legal question

[transfattyacid]

I just found out that the wiring in the three apt building I live in is all screwy and that I've been paying part of the upstairs neighbor's electricity and vice versa. I haven't been able to confirm whether or not I'm paying anything else that I'm not supposed to. Can anyone give me any advice on what my course of action should be in rectifying

Comments

[raze__the_rose]

Was this a house, that was later converted to apartments? I ran this by my electrician boyfriend and he said,

"that doesn't mean the wiring in faulty, just that when the structure was built, it was designed to have several things on different floors on the same circuit. If this is a house converted into a few apartments, there's no way the wiring electrician could have or would have predicted that. It's fine for a single dwelling, but inconvenient if it's later split up... It does make cost sharing utilities difficult; there is no way to determine who is using what amount of electricity. It's easy enough to determine what is on what circuit with a plug tester, the light switches and the breaker box... but there's no way to really determine what electricity is used on what circuit, or how much is used from different points int he same circuit.

if it's only one or two receptacles that are the problem, it might be possible, depending on how the circuit is run, to fish in a new wire and create a new circuit. but if the problem area is in the middle of a circuit, it would take out everything after it too. Basically, rewiring is not really a feasible option, although it is technically possible."

I think I'd just try to find a way to work it out with the other tenants. If everybody's bills are similar, I'd just ignore it. If one person is using a lot more, and adding to your bill, I'd try to come up with an agreement with them. And/or find a new place to live. I doubt your landlord is going to rip out everybody's walls just to rewire this. You'd be asking him to incur a HUGE expense, to possibly save the tenants a small one.

I'm sure if everybody approaches it calmly, a solution can be found.

[transfattyacid]

We talked to the tennent on the second floor and she told us that she would sometimes shut her power off if she was going to be gone for a couple of days and that the third floor tennent started complaining about her power going off. She also said she realized she was paying for third floor tennents washer and dryer usage. I don't know, but all of this seems very illegal on the landlords behalf. It also doesn't make sense that the second floor tennent (whose apt is smaller than ours) is paying for a large portion of our electric, is very frugal with her own usage and has bills that are half the size of ours. I guess I just want to know what the heck i'm paying for and don't feel it should be up to the tennents to fix the problem, but my landlord seems very reluctant to address the problem as he's already lied to me about it.

[meantforamazing]

It is illegal for the landlord not to have proper wiring. Try asking .

[meantforamazing]

law-questions

[transfattyacid]

And yes, it is a converted house. The word faulty was just a bad choice on my part.