power outage
So I havent received an electric bill since I moved into my place last September. I was pretty sure it was not included in the rent and I remember filling out some form when i moved in authorizing the electric service. But since then, the lights have been on, and I havent paid a dime.
This afternoon at work however, my landlady calls to tell me that I need to pay my bill or the power will be turned off TOMORROW. This came as a bit of a surprise, considering I have yet to get a bill. I went to the neighborhood office place where you can pay bills and get info and whatnot expecting that from whatever glitch in the system I didnt get a bill and that I could pay up or set up a payment plan. Here's where things get interesting.
The bill they print out for me is for over $600 (kinda steep for under a year). The bill is also in my landlady's name, not mine and they had been sending it to her address. Turns out she never canceled the previous tenant's account, so by the time I moved in there were already over $300 worth of unpaid bills and she had been getting past due notices. These notices apparently kept coming in and she apparently neither paid them, nor thought it was important enough to even TELL ME about them until today, leaving me less than 24 hours to pay my electric bill and hundreds of dollars worth of bills that do not belong to me, including late charges.
So after finding out this information I call her back and she freaks out, claims that she has nothing to do with it and that I should tell Seattle City Light to break up the bill so I can pay my share. Of course this is impossible because the bill needs to be paid IN FULL in order to create a new account on the unit, which she never did 10 months ago.
After talking with people at the city light credit department, talking with the super friendly guy at the office and writing a letter to the 3rd party arbitrator examiner person, I think they are going to leave my power on until this gets straightened out.
I am just worried that I am going to be forced into moving because of this. I always knew that my landlords were kinda weird folks and didnt really care too much for making this a nice or classy building (hence the cheap rent). But we always get a rental statement taped to our door on the first of the month with a pre-stamped envelope for rent, and they seemed organized about the lease and paperwork, etc. But after this whole incident, I am beginning to think that at least the woman might be bat-shit crazy/negligent slumlord. People from City light are going to call her tomorrow morning, so we'll see how that goes. She was apparently "rude" and hung up on them this morning so we'll see how it goes next time.
TO BE CONTINUED...
This afternoon at work however, my landlady calls to tell me that I need to pay my bill or the power will be turned off TOMORROW. This came as a bit of a surprise, considering I have yet to get a bill. I went to the neighborhood office place where you can pay bills and get info and whatnot expecting that from whatever glitch in the system I didnt get a bill and that I could pay up or set up a payment plan. Here's where things get interesting.
The bill they print out for me is for over $600 (kinda steep for under a year). The bill is also in my landlady's name, not mine and they had been sending it to her address. Turns out she never canceled the previous tenant's account, so by the time I moved in there were already over $300 worth of unpaid bills and she had been getting past due notices. These notices apparently kept coming in and she apparently neither paid them, nor thought it was important enough to even TELL ME about them until today, leaving me less than 24 hours to pay my electric bill and hundreds of dollars worth of bills that do not belong to me, including late charges.
So after finding out this information I call her back and she freaks out, claims that she has nothing to do with it and that I should tell Seattle City Light to break up the bill so I can pay my share. Of course this is impossible because the bill needs to be paid IN FULL in order to create a new account on the unit, which she never did 10 months ago.
After talking with people at the city light credit department, talking with the super friendly guy at the office and writing a letter to the 3rd party arbitrator examiner person, I think they are going to leave my power on until this gets straightened out.
I am just worried that I am going to be forced into moving because of this. I always knew that my landlords were kinda weird folks and didnt really care too much for making this a nice or classy building (hence the cheap rent). But we always get a rental statement taped to our door on the first of the month with a pre-stamped envelope for rent, and they seemed organized about the lease and paperwork, etc. But after this whole incident, I am beginning to think that at least the woman might be bat-shit crazy/negligent slumlord. People from City light are going to call her tomorrow morning, so we'll see how that goes. She was apparently "rude" and hung up on them this morning so we'll see how it goes next time.
TO BE CONTINUED...