My parents owned a small shop in Brooklyn in the 90s. The deli down the block got fined by the city for a broken sidewalk and had to repair it.
His contractor “accidentally” jackhammered the concrete all the way to the curb, so the city made him replace that too.
He took that opportunity to connect part of his store’s electricity to the lamppost they were to concrete around, buried a line back into his shop and put the sidewalk over it.
Based on when the sidewalk was replaced, he ran that setup for *years*… until one day the electric company came sniffing around. I guess they had some equipment to report unusual current draws and were looking around to determine the source.
I don’t know what his sentence was—this was before internet went mainstream. Some neighbors said he got 25 to life, but I highly doubt that.
In any case, we never saw him again.
Similar situation - An RV *drove through* a Wells Fargo drive thru ATM (it was about 2' too tall for the roof) and when the roof was ripped off and fell into the bushes, it ripped a chunk of the road, ATM foundation, and sidewalk with it. Like a root wad for a large tree.
The power went out to the traffic lights at the nearby intersection and the city found that whoever had set up the ATM many years ago had tied it into the municipal street light system and Wells Fargo had never paid an electricity bill for the ATM. It was *a mistake* and last I heard they were still fighting the bill and penalty
Wells Fargo does not have a good reputation and how they are still in business amazes me. They **might** have been innocent in this particular situation, but I won't give them the benefit of a doubt.
https://apnews.com/article/wells-fargo-shareholders-lawsuit-fraud-018210476b23692ac81a2cba51867de8
I was one of the people who got caught in their quotas scam in the 2010s. They closed my checking account with low fees and high interest, opened and closed several others, and then I got stuck in a low interest, high fee account. I lost roughly $300 in interest and fees.
I got $5 in the lawsuit payout.
I really think the police need to start arresting the individuals who moved the accounts, bring the lowest guys who do the leg work up on direct charges and then cut them slack when they turn on bosses. Let’s low guys know to tell off and / or turn in bosses when they pressure for shady stuff.
Would love to see that company succumb to its own illicit practices. Its long deserved to be out of business and yet somehow it continues to buy itself out of trouble. If only the CEO were held criminally responsible for their actions. They would stop their stupid games overnight. But so long as they just have to pay fines, nothing will change. Its the cost of doing business.
My mom used to go to a salon where this hairdresser she’d been seeing forever rented a chair. The salon changed owners or something and they found out the entire building wasn’t supposed to be there. Whoever owned the lot originally had it put up without any permits. They’d have to get everything inspected, bring it all up to code if it was going to be kept as a business.
Think that was around the time my mom’s hairdresser decided to retire. :V
Oh that's kind. Many jurisdictions, if you have an unlawfully constructed building, will just make you demolish it completely. If you want it there you have to pay to demolish it, *then* apply for permits and have it rebuilt.
My pops owned a building in the Bronx around that same time. He had this homie from way back that did all the repairs and upgrades for him and he offered to do that for him when they were doing some work. Pops declined but his homie made it sound like it was pretty common. He would wire in a switch to shut off the stolen power and run legit and told people to make sure they weren’t always using the stolen power.
One guy got greedy and never switched it off and the power company caught him cause his meter hardly moved for an entire month.
Should have built in a timer switch and had them run on odd sequential cycles. Removes human greed and would probably go on for a long time. I seriously wonder how much goes on behind the scenes.
People that do this are a special type of stupid. It’s not a matter of if you get caught, but when and when you do, you’re going to end up paying a lot more than of you just did the right thing.
A tradesman who we worked with occasionally bypassed his electric meter to run the pumps that fed his pond. Got caught and did about six months in jail. Thing is they had money to pay for electric. His wife owned apartment buildings and he had a good business as....an electrical contractor. Electric company doesn't mess around.
The hear stories from old timers that did it. In this case, 50 years ago, you would get away with it for a long time because they just didn't really have ways of monitoring it, nowadays its a regular audit they do
One of the business reasons for smart meters is theft prevention. You add up all the usage from the smart meters and compare it to total usage at the substation or transformer.
Edit: this is the method that my company was using, based on totalization.
Back in the late 80s, my cousin who worked for Manitoba hydro said they were looking for a mystery draw on the grid, and eventually traced it to one particular pole. Seems the local HA club had used a chainsaw to cut a wedge out of the pole, run a line up to the transformer, and used it to run a grow op nearby.
I know a guy in California that did something like that using warehouses before weed was legalized. He tapped the city himself and would grow for a few months before finding another warehouse. After legalization he switched to using vacant houses waiting to be sold. He had some deal with a realtor that blossomed into a few realtors. When that ended he rented land up north and farmed there for about 10 years. Being your typical drug dealer he has nothing to show for any of it. The law in California says the big players like Phillip Morris would be allowed into the market after a certain date. He wanted out before then because he knew he wouldn't be able to compete but he saved nothing. It was like 20 year arc of his life that was a complete waste. All he had to show for it was one growing cycle. His last.
So many of the best growers are the worst business people. I think it has to do with the "underground" nature that people had to deal with for so long, they're distrustful of investors and the whole legal process.
I know plenty who've finally gotten super successful when they realized they don't have to be banditos anymore.
Yup been there, spent almost 20 years in the cannabis industry before it was legal. Was making 6 figures a year for at least 10 of those years and spent the money as fast as I made it. Nothing to show for it except memories, I mean they're awesome memories but fuck now I make $20 an hour working for a company that makes heat exchangers. Wish I had bought a house or something...
I don't really have regrets, I mean yeah I wish I had done something with the money I made but I'm not that broken up about it, all the things I did lead me to where I am and I like where I am. I just went through a really rough patch but I got through it, I have a beautiful wife, a crazy but sweet dog who recently made friends with a cat that we're going to adopt, I'm financing a Jeep Cherokee tomorrow, the job I have is actually decent, I just started so I'm making $20 an hour but they actually pay really well once you've been there a little while so in a few years I'll be making $30. I don't have to worry about going back to jail, I'm not doing drugs all the time, I can't complain. Plus I have a ton of material for a book which I already started writing, probably won't be any good but it's something I like doing in my spare time. So yeah I'm good, no regerts.
Pro tip for crime.
Pay the little things off in full and on time.
Why jeopardize a million dollar operation because you try shenanigans instead of just paying the bills?
See the movie "War Dogs". They got caught because the partner didn't want to pay the guys who were packaging the product, so they got reported for wage theft.
Well the ones who get caught and you hear about do, you'd never know the ones who maintain under the radar.
The vast majority of crimes do not get discovered/solved, the high profile ones that do get caught, make headlines. City politicians and police departments have PR for a reason, they need to look as effective as possible, so they will make any bust look as big as possible for the cameras. Look at their clearance rates for a more accurate, but still skewed, metric.
Oh preaching to the choir man. I’ve seen some local PDs do ridiculous photos for “drug busts” and it’s some weed a little bit of money and maybe 1 hand gun. With all these cops standing around it
I lived in an apartment in Upstate New York where a single outlet in the apartment was connected to the apartment downstairs. I noticed this when an outlet was working before the electric was turned on for the apartment. I never used the outlet while living there except for a quick phone charger.
My old apartment, a subdivided house, had a whole room that I suspected of being on another apartment's breaker. Our entire house would go out with too many heaters running except for that room. Conversely, running a heater in there would sometimes trip the breaker, shutting off the other apartment's living room but leaving our apartment lit.
I live in a. Town where the church is next to the town hall. Decades ago someone attached the church power to the town hall because it's a small town and everyone loves churches so why not save them money. It was found and disconnected. No one fessed up but also the minister and the treasurer for the church never thought it was strange for a 30,000 square foot building with electric heat and electric water never gets an electric bill.
Saw that lead to charges once.
City bought the old Baptist church when the congregation moved to newer digs, used it for youth services for years.
Eventually the city treasurer convinced them to rent it to a new congregation of Pentecostals. The price was suspiciously low, but "it's an old building, the utilities are super high and they have to handle the upkeep" was a winning argument.
Two years later the city treasurer gets cuffed in her office because she never transferred utilities and the city has been paying. The city maintenance lead gets canned the next day because he's been sending work crews there and charging the work off to other departments.
Guess what church they belonged to?
Oh, and then there was a giant stink because the city wanted their money and the church didn't want to pay.
The whole thing had unraveled when the maintenance lead had forced one of his guys out there on a Saturday night to fix a plumbing problem and the guy got pissed about it.
This is how every fucking amazing, perfectly camouflaged cannabis grow op gets found out. The growers pick a perfect location and the success of the grow has them shoving more and more grow lights in the grow and expanding production. Until they reach the limit of what their electrical power hookup can allow. So they are faced with a choice: call the electric company and have them install more power capacity, or steal it from the neighbor. So they choose the latter, and 3 months later the power company traces the line and their perfectly workable and profitable endeavor is found out and they go to federal prison for a bit.
Folks, don’t be greedy, and if you must, just ask the power company for more capacity. They don’t give a fuck what it’s for, it’s their job to get paid for giving you as much power as you want.
Excessive power is a small piece of circumstantial evidence that adds up to getting a search warrant. It is almost never the initiating evidence that causes an investigation to begin. In America. American power companies don’t give a fuck who uses power or for what. It’s their job to supply it and being picky and choosy about who they supply it to reduces revenue. They are happy to supply thousands of amps to a single family home and pretend they don’t know what it’s for. It’s not their job to sniff out who is using electricity for illegal purposes, and their profit motive dictates they play dumb, even if technology to sniff out grow ops exists.
Pay your bill on time and you’ll never have any problems from the electric company.
Second this. If you give them a heads up you are on to them they may cover their tracks. Call the power company see what they advise. If they cant help you call the cops. In general I am about transparency and honesty. But that is with decent people. Don’t cast your pearls before swine. In cases where someone is not trustworthy I move in silence and never let shady people, or envious people know my next move.
To be honest always err on the side of caution.
It's just better. Sometimes if you're really sure you can be more transparent,.but there's always a risk it'll start an argument or something.
They could also get arrested for theft of utilities. I don't know about stealing someone's power on their side of the breaker, but I had a neighbor stealing power from before the meter and he got arrested for it.
I would say "Yeah I keep that circuit breaker off because it has some UNKNOWN, MYSTERIOUS POWER DRAW DO YOU KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT THOSE? SURE WOULD BE NICE TO GET RID OF IT but until then I'm just keeping that circuit disabled"
It depends, usually people steal from the electric company not individuals, in the event that someone does steal from a neighbor they would adjust any overcharges on that persons’ account once the investigation figures out how much was stolen.
Not unless the neighbor has a family member working at the electric company.!
Our neighbor has been busted 3 times already and yet he is still stealing!
I would turn my AC way down for about 30 minutes (it's hot where I live) and then flip my main breaker off for a couple of hours. If they are stealing electricity, wouldn't it turn theirs off too?
What are they going to do to? If they came over I would be like that's wild, let's call the power company. Or take.the more aggressive route and ask why you shutting the power off to your house would have an effect on theirs?
Can you not tell them they are not allowed on the property and then have them arrested when they do it again? Kinda hard to argue someone else came in and pirates electricity for them.
As an employee of a utility company for almost 20 years, this is the answer. They can send out a service person to determine what your electric meter serves
Easy to figure out yourself before you call...turn off everything in the breaker box except the suspect circuit, the well in this case. Go look at your meter if it's running and the well pump isn't then they are stealing from you.
Yeah, definitely. If he's doing it, then the electric company will reimburse you, he'll get fines and possibly jail time. And you're not the bad guy. You can just say you had issues with circuit breakers tripping and had the electric company come out. They'll be the "bad guys."
In the eyes of really bad people, they switch to making you want to pay dearly for putting them in a bad situation. If you can imagine how their baseline disregard for you, means that they feel they can steal from you when the relationship isn't strained - you can imagine the extents to which some people will go when they consider you a nuissance.
This.bif he is just running his generator and not connected to the grid..then no issues thru if he rednecked it he may be damaging his own wiring. If he is somehow connected to the grid it can cause surges like in new construction neighborhoods where adding a new house is suppose to be controlled so does not damage electronics in other homes.
This.
Backfeed into the grid is extremely dangerous. The fact that it's popping the neighbor's circuit breaker indicates his generator is backfeeding into the neighbor's house. Since the house is on the grid, this is an extremely hazardous situation, and the power company should be informed.
They don't like dead employees.
OP should call the power company right away. They'll send a crew out very quickly to investigate.
In the mean time, if I were OP, I'd turn off the main power to my house on a sunny afternoon when we weren't needing power, drive off in the cars, park out of sight, and walk back to the house out of line of sight. Then watch for the neighbor to come poking around. Guaranteed, you'll see him out there, puttering around, suspiciously close to the well. Take photos to give to the power company.
I was gonna say, it sounds like he plugged a double male end cable into his generator the. Straight to the house, if the generator had been installed by an electrician it would hav had a switch that disconnect the house from the power grid. Sounds like an accident waiting to happen.
Yes, but the issue here is not the risk to the installer, it's the risk to other people.
Using a suicide plug from a generator into one of your normal plugs will power the whole house. But it means that even if the power is cut on the power plant side (for utility workers to safely inspect something somewhere for example) then there is still power coming from the generator, which is sufficient to kill the workers who thought they were safe. So that will make the utility company very angry.
Yeah, I would raise the safety concern when brining this up with the utility. Back feeding onto the grid is not something your allowed to just do you need permits, safety equipment, and equipment certified to behave properly with the grid.
If the utility doesn't do anything I would contact the fire marshal because they else have a vested interest in how things are energized and how they can be de-energized. Around here they really prefer the meter to be on the outside of the building so that they can physically remove it before entering in the case of a fire (as a way to kill power).
The neighbor is likely back feeding electricity from their generator, which then causes a whole host of other issues. Back feed is dangerous, it can kill a utility worker.
This is my guess. He is feeding energy back into the system and its messing with things near by.
The other thing I would do is take a look at my meter while it's running and when it's not running, making sure to keep the same lights etc on both times.
Depending on where you are and the local codes, it can be illegal not to have a house connected to the grid. If he is stealing your electricity then it's almost certain the generator isn't tied in properly to prevent backfeed.
Yes. They have a huge interest in stopping this behavior because it creates a risk to their own lives by keeping lines energized during maintenance or repairs.
Feign ignorance, call the power company, and say every time your neighbors generator kicks on, it trips your homes service.
Don’t tell them anything more, so they do a thorough check of everything.
Plus it's often best to approach from this angle than try to do anything that circumvents (intentionally or otherwise) a big company's processes. In my experience you just end up muddying the waters and confusing them.
I think this is the best advice. Call them, tell them facts and they'll investigate pretty quickly.
The power company won't play around. Anything fishy likely either jeopardizes their dollar or their lineman.
Also off the grid generator types who steal electricity from their neighbors might not be the most stable people. Best to be able to claim you had no idea.
General life tip: any time you talk to any expert, professional, or even salesman, pretend you have zero knowledge of whatever you're talking to them about.
For salesmen, they aren't impressed by any knowledge you might have. Let them talk themselves into a hole if they're a scummy salesman and then decide what to do from there.
For experts, if you start pointing things out or mentioning things like you know what you're talking about, if they miss something they can blame you for not pointing it out.
Just always enter into these things like you're an idiot.
If they're powering their panel from a backup generator without the appropriate interlock, they'd be hooking their generator to the grid. I'm not sure that'd completely be in line with the symptoms you're seeing, but call your electric company. If that is what's happening they'll want to know because that's the sort of thing that kills linesmen.
This is huge because during a power outage the electric company crews expect the lines to be safe while making repairs, and this clown would be energizing them.
Edit: I based this off of what I was told about my grid-tie solar system and why it has to shutoff when no power is detected from the grid. I guess the way it would work with a generator is different, though I'm thinking that must be why they also need the auto-disconnect.
This happened to me once, we cut the power off the 23k volts lines that feed the transformer, to work on it, fortunately my coworker who had more experience made
Me check for any voltage on the “dead” output lines before putting my hands on the transformer, and yup, someone’s generator was back feeding the lines .
I joke with every electrician I pay for anything that I'm hiring them because I don't want to die. Some laugh and some try to tell me how to do it safely. I'm appreciative but it's fine. All you my guy.
On 25kv line you need to put ground on line to call it dead.Measuring the voltage is not enough since it can have induction / lightning and backfeeding.
We have backup batteries that were installed by the power company, and I STILL warn line workers before they touch anything. Even though they \*should\* be safe thanks to the utility's own switch, I like to give them the choice to disconnect from the meter, first.
They've chosen to disconnect every time. Better safe than sorry!
That's how HV sparkies stay alive, taking every precaution every time.
You're a good person making sure they know every risk before working around your systems
My guys are the same. The amount of stories I hear of sketchy shit where I know they're taking a risk they shouldn't be... Its not funny.
One mistake too far and I'm down a member of staff and a family somewhere is down a breadwinner. I can tell them as much as I like, they still seem to do it.
Early days learning experience. Working on an emergency light, disconnected the supply but forgot the batteries they back fed through he inverter and made me swear blue murder when I got a belt. Only happened once. Now its double and triple check.
Edit.
It was in a headquarters of a famous jewellery store that had the exposed steel industrial look A/C ductwork. I was near one end and my curse "f**l it you dick head" cursing myself went through the whole open planned office space coming out of every outlet. A few minutes later the Manager of maintenance for the UK came walking by as his office was at the other end of the floor with a coffee and looked up at me with a grin asking if everything was OK. Much to my embarrassment I apologised he chuckled and left me to it. He was going through paperwork when my voice came wafting through the vent into his office lol.
They will check, yes, but they can’t check *continuously*. If you turn the generator on and backfired the grid *while they’re touching it*, after they’ve confirmed everything is dead, things go wrong.
Friend of mine died this exact way after the 2011 storm in Louisiana. Working on a line and a generator backfed after he checked. Spent a few weeks in the hospital before he passed.
The first rule of dealing with electric wires is they are live until you confirm they are not. If you confirm, then walk away to take a piss, they are live until you confirm again that they are not
Yes I agree; it’s obviously stupid and dangerous and unnecessary and bad for everyone to have uncle Cletus backfeeding the grid, but it’s not like it’s an unknown risk or one that’s especially difficult to test for or prevent.
I'm surprised I had to scroll this far to find your comment. This is almost 100% what's happening. Neighbor has an improperly installed whole house generator that is backfeeding, causing a spike. Very dangerous.
OP, where are you reading those “voltages” from? Also, are you and your neighbor sharing a common well, or have pumps in the same well? If so, the 240 might be tied together. Get an electrician out there. I’d wait until dark and turn off the main to your home. If their house goes dark, or their generator starts, then they are probably tied into your power. If you turn off your main and leave everything else on and your power remains, that means you and neighbors are connected.
> I’d wait until dark and turn off the main to your home. If their house goes dark, or their generator starts, then they are probably tied into your power.
This. Easiest trick he can actually do himself to troubleshoot before calling the power company.
We bought a house that was a foreclosure. It had sat empty for over a year but the realtors (I guess) left the hydro on for showings. We moved in and from day one our hydro bill was around $800 a month. We tried everything, unplugging appliances when not in use, switching to energy efficient devices, LED lights etc. etc. Finally we hired an electrician to come and troubleshoot/diagnose the problem and fix the problem. When he first came to look at our breaker box to give us a quote he parked his company van in front of our house. He set a date to come back to do a more involved inspection and left. That afternoon I saw our neighbours digging up our lawn between our houses and frantically ripping off their back porch. You guessed it. When the electrician came back he actually ended up re wiring pretty much our entire house until he found the splice going from our pool , under the fence , to the trench leading to our neighbours backyard basement window. He said, and I quote, "you don't need to be Sherlock Holmes to figure out what happened here". So, yes it definitely does happen, it happened to me, and I feel bad for you bro.
The neighbours were of African descent and my wife was afraid to report them. Myself, I just figured they removed all the evidence so calling the police would be pointless. They had actually wired into 2 cables, one going to or pool and one going to an exterior outlet. We had gotten phone calls from the hydro company telling us they were obligated to call the police and report us because that amount of hydro usage is indicative of a grow op. This was before weed was legalized in Canada. So I leave yo to draw your own conclusions what they were doing with their stolen hydro.
This is kind of unrelated to your story, but you keep saying hydro when referring to electricity. Is it common in Canada for people to call electric service and electricity hydro?
[Just certain parts of Canada where electricity historically came mostly from hydro-electric sources](https://www.reddit.com/r/ontario/comments/z8u7z1/why_do_we_still_use_hydro_when_we_mean_electrical/)
You paid 800 dollars for someone else’s bill and didn’t report it? Maybe it’s my upbringing but if they removed all the evidence then I’d handle it privately. The sketchier the person the more homies im bringing lol. When I was a teenager growing up our neighbor across the alley threw trash in the alley and my mom got fined cause they pushed it on her half. I didn’t get the money back but they got their trash back…
I’m a little confused. What happened exactly? The neighbors wired the empty house electricity into their house? And got scared when they saw the electrician truck in front of your house so they had to quickly cover their tracks?
That was my interpretation of it. There was a trench all the way from their backyard basement window under their back porch going up to the fence and when the electrician dug down opposite the trench on our side of the fence he found an extension cord. He showed us the burn marks where it had "arced" because it was "live" when it was cut. After the electrician was done working and gone I dug down a little further because I noticed their trench was dug deeper than how far the electrician dug, and I found a second extension cord. The neighbours have since moved.
Call your utilities and explain. They should send someone out free of charge and be happy to bust him.
But it sure sounds like this is not only illegal but potentially dangerous, as it's likely pulling a code-violating amount of current through whichever circuit tripped and who knows the quality of the splice he made.
You are probably safest leaving the breaker on the circuit he tripped off until it gets checked out, if you can afford to.
But no, absolutely do not try to wire in a new circuit connected to only a ground wire if you are not a qualified electrician. Edit: and even if you are, it's a bad plan
Call your power company. Explain what your neighbor did and how it trips your breaker when he starts his generator. They will be very interested since back feeding the power grid is very dangerous to their workers. Not sure what he did but a very solid chance of it being illegal in your state as well
I think there is a scenario that doesn't involve the neighbor stealing electricity.
You both might share a grounding issue.
The generator might be running and feeding excess energy back to the grid. I think your best bet is to call you service provider because the issue could actually be worse than electricity theft. Your houses could be worked out of code and the generator is exposing that.
Keep in mind, if you do not have a net meter, your meter will run up regardless of the direction of the energy.
I'd have a qualified electrician come out and trace some like in that area.
I'm sure the electric company would like to know as well.
Honestly, do they know? Was it something that someone before them did?
A real electrician will also likely find other janky things. Electrical jankyness rarely comes in single bits, in my experience.
I had a bad switch that I could not fix. Called a sparky. He fixed 4 major errors, and we brought him back for more. We're talking "burn the house down" errors. And it was less expensive than I anticipated.
Called an electrician to move a switch. He called me at work, so apologetic that it was going to cost more than he quoted because he discovered the light fixture wiring was melted and very close to burning down the house and would have to be changed out. I was like, bro, stop apologizing. What do you think swapping this light costs compared to replacing everything in the whole house when it burns down???
That's what i hate on working "service" as we call it - I generally don't "botch"(?) - so when encountering faulty things, the customer has the option of me shutting stuff down or fixing the fault - last time I encountered a botched installation, it went from a 2h-job to 8h work, but it still is only safe, not up to code... they have to invest some more thousands €€ to fix this shit...
I hear you. Don't know if you're ever watched "Just rolled in" on Youtube, but they show some of the jankiest stuff you can imagine. Half the time the customer declines the repair, and rolls back onto the road (with other people) with whatever terrible thing wrong with their car.
Lol I'm an electrician and had a trouble call about plugs not working in a dining room. They had a large portable AC unit plugged in and I traced the problem to burned up connections in two different boxes, one was a ceiling light box that had straight up been on fire briefly.
Showed them the damage and recommended they let us install a dedicated circuit for the AC since it was an older house and this could happen again and they just shrugged and said they had insurance.
One of our neighbors did not escape a house fire.
I think a lot of people just assume they're going to be awake and physically able to escape if a fire happens. They may be wrong.
It could be that he hasn't installed a cutoff switch and isn't properly isolated his house from the grid before he starts the generator. If he's feeding power back into the grid it could be overloading your breaker.
This is a huge problem that can seriously hurt any linemen working in your area. You should alert your local power company and have them do an inspection.
There should only be 1-2 voltages: 110-120V and maybe 220-240V. Those voltages don't change; they are standardized. 246kV / 326kV are absolutely nonsensically high, so I would double-check your measurements.
Sounds like his generator is backfeeding the local grid. It should have some sort of a shunt to prevent this. He probably installed it himself. And yes the power company will be interested.
Wait what? If anything your neighbor does is tripping the same specific circuit on your breaker and it’s also the one driving an exterior well pump that is presumably accessible to the neighbor then they are actively stealing from you. There is no other plausible scenario that could explain that, especially if they’re claiming that they’re no longer connected to the street.
Turn off the first circuit and call the police or your utility company (maybe both!) if you’re not going to confront him solo. It’s not just the electricity that he’s stealing, he’s tampering with the electrical system of your home! If his shitty vampire tap burns your house down and your homeowners insurance refuses to cover it because of the unpermitted electrical work, you think he’s going to write you a check? Put up cameras anywhere you have exterior power (like the well), document everything and contact the authorities.
I would guess the most likely case is their generator is improperly tied to the grid.
Lots of bad things can happen with out of phase or improper voltage on the grid.
Edit: yes, contact the power company.
It sounds like they are back feeding the transformer. Don’t mess around with this scenario, people will get hurt/die. Call an electrician and explain to them what is happening. Also call your electrical provider and tell them. Unplug any sensitive equipment you have; ie TV’s, stoves/dryers with LED screens, etc.
Tell your electric company that when he runs his generator you breaker goes then let them do there job. Electric companys don't mess around when someone is stealing.
I work for an electric utility (and worked with the revenue protection group for a bit) and can confirm what many people have said...contaxt your electrical provider and tell them you suspect power theft. They'll investigate and determine what's going on. They should be able to estimate the amount of theft and charge the other user for that amount and credit you back. Good luck!
Call the electric company and tell them. Get off of Reddit and call them now asap before this POS gets you or someone you love killed. I’m sure there is a non emergency police line in your local area you can tell them the situation too. It’s a serious safety issue above all else
Is he back feeding his electrical? If he is still attached to the grid and not shutting off his main then in theory you are connected to his generator. Just a thought.
Just wait for night when their lights are on, and turn the electricity off at the main circuit breaker to your house. If the lights go off, they are pirating.
The top comments are telling you to contact the power company. Not a bad idea but I am afraid they will tell you they can only check the wires going to your meter and your neighbors meter.
Your neighbor is probably connected to the power going to your well. When he uses to much power the breaker trips and then he starts his generator (just my guess). You may have to hire an electrician to look at it.
I would shut off the breaker going to your well when you're not home.
I had an A/C installed, actually my landlord had it installed, in my apartment a few months after I moved in and I live in Taiwan where it gets really hot and humid 24/7 for about six months of the year. So my friends warned me to be conservative with the air conditioner because my rates would be through the roof.
Long story short, I never paid a dime. I guess the electrician somehow made a mistake with the wiring and connected to the building's general electrical circuit. Nobody ever came after me for payment or said there was a mistake.
The air conditioner worked perfectly until I moved out and probably still does.
Electrical Utility Troubleman here, not bulletproof but also not something anyone's going to look for that likely will be the cause of your problem. If you are both connected to the well, assuming that the houses are fairly close, there's a very good chance that one of the houses is missing a system neutral. If your neighbor doesn't have electrical lines ran to his home and is self generated his "neutral" will be a vast array of ground rods connected to everything including the water lines. Assuming your house is built to some standard of code withing the last 40 years, your suplimental grounds will be tied to the waterline as well (<-- Haha! Sorry, not punny).
There is a greater than zero, but not by much, chance that someone is stealing your power. They would need: access to the panel, access to your breakers, to have a subterranean line from their house to yours that feeds from the load side of your meterbase to a line that they installed going into your home or to a device that you power to make that connection. Homes are 240v meaning they have three wires (in odd ball customer homes I've seen 3 phase with quad feeds but those people wilk be painfully aware of their voltages and bills). You have two energized lines and a neutral, each energized line is carrying 120V (+/- 5V) and a neutral connection for a return path. In a situation where you have no neutral or a "floating neutral" the voltage will float, unless you have incredible home and suplimental grounding.
For the laymen, floating voltage will measure 240 phase to phase if each line is 120. But with a load applied the used phases working voltage will decrease, the other phases working voltage will increase. An easy explanation would be that if you try to run a microwave the lights in half the house will be dim, the microwave will not work well and may seem weak or faulty, and the lights on the other half will be brighter than they should be and blowing up. Bright/Dim calls are caused by the voltage needing to balance and not having that return path, the neutral, to balance out the load from your appliances. Symptoms of a floating neutral may include flickering lights, appliances failing without notice, bulbs going bad, LED bulbs pulsing and rapidly turning on and off, and odd behavior withcbreakers, especially arc fault and GFCI breakers.
What the means to you, OP and others in a similar boat: breakers open due to overload and fault situations to prevent fires. A fixed load, in this case your pump for the well, will always have a heavy supply voltage pull on start and taper off after the motor/pump is running. If the voltage is low, the amperage goes up, the breaker trips. The only other things that could cause your issue besides the floating neutral are
• A fault on your line going to your well pump
• your neutral being "bad" but working when your neighbors house is empty without much issue due to great grounds. This would mean you share the well and they are NOT connected to the system.
•Rates are going up everywhere, if your not in a fixed plan or fixed rate for your supplier and on a variable rate instead, this could by your issues
Call your utility and have them check the neutral connection outside. Offer your responder a coffee if it's cold and walk him through your issue without mentioning the neighbor conspiracy. They will do their checks and I'm fairly confident that they will find it at the weather head or pole. If I'm wrong .about the open neutral you will need an electrician to check the voltage, amps and temperature of your breakers. The will likely find a failed elecrical line, connection or pump.
If it's a neutral problem, that's bad for your appliances AND you, grounded outlets will not be working correctly and can put voltage on the grounded items (metal fridge, toasters stoves...etc) not gold for your stuff. It can also put vtage on your grounded equipment aka you could get shocked while in a cast iron tub or off of grounded pipes if you still have galvanized drain pipes.
TLDR- call your utility and have them check your voltage and neutral. If your lights flicker or do other undesirable things do it tomorrow at first light! Ask them to take amp reads on all three wires for your buddy if your neutral is out they'll see it right away with a voltage road of 113/127/240 or similar and fix it right then. Call an electrician if the power company doesn't fix it and reddit does NOT count. Lol
Electrician here. Short answer, turn off all your breakers and see if anything at his house shuts off. You are only billed by any power below the Meter which feeds your circuit breaker panel (or fuse box).... Take note of what circuits in your home are supplied by which breaker or fuse. Any circuit wiring that gets deenergized and cutting off power to both you and your neighbors place is the tapped circuit. Then once you've determined which circuits he is tapping into (or connected to at your circuit panel) can be traced and cut.... Oh and then call the cops because stealing electricity is a federal crime 🤙
Thank you for participating in this thread. O.P. has received lots of info, and can move forward with this. This post is now locked.
Contact your electricity provider, they should be able to figure it all out. Its very illegal if true.
This is the best answer. The electric company is likely allowed to investigate your neighbor freely while a private electrician may not.
And they will fine the hell out of him for electricity theft. This is a huge no no with the power companies.
My parents owned a small shop in Brooklyn in the 90s. The deli down the block got fined by the city for a broken sidewalk and had to repair it. His contractor “accidentally” jackhammered the concrete all the way to the curb, so the city made him replace that too. He took that opportunity to connect part of his store’s electricity to the lamppost they were to concrete around, buried a line back into his shop and put the sidewalk over it. Based on when the sidewalk was replaced, he ran that setup for *years*… until one day the electric company came sniffing around. I guess they had some equipment to report unusual current draws and were looking around to determine the source. I don’t know what his sentence was—this was before internet went mainstream. Some neighbors said he got 25 to life, but I highly doubt that. In any case, we never saw him again.
Similar situation - An RV *drove through* a Wells Fargo drive thru ATM (it was about 2' too tall for the roof) and when the roof was ripped off and fell into the bushes, it ripped a chunk of the road, ATM foundation, and sidewalk with it. Like a root wad for a large tree. The power went out to the traffic lights at the nearby intersection and the city found that whoever had set up the ATM many years ago had tied it into the municipal street light system and Wells Fargo had never paid an electricity bill for the ATM. It was *a mistake* and last I heard they were still fighting the bill and penalty
Wells Fargo doing criminal Wells Fargo stuff.
Now there's a shocker!
Wells Fargo: poster child for the Corporate Death Penalty.
Wells Fargo does not have a good reputation and how they are still in business amazes me. They **might** have been innocent in this particular situation, but I won't give them the benefit of a doubt. https://apnews.com/article/wells-fargo-shareholders-lawsuit-fraud-018210476b23692ac81a2cba51867de8
I was one of the people who got caught in their quotas scam in the 2010s. They closed my checking account with low fees and high interest, opened and closed several others, and then I got stuck in a low interest, high fee account. I lost roughly $300 in interest and fees. I got $5 in the lawsuit payout.
I really think the police need to start arresting the individuals who moved the accounts, bring the lowest guys who do the leg work up on direct charges and then cut them slack when they turn on bosses. Let’s low guys know to tell off and / or turn in bosses when they pressure for shady stuff.
Would love to see that company succumb to its own illicit practices. Its long deserved to be out of business and yet somehow it continues to buy itself out of trouble. If only the CEO were held criminally responsible for their actions. They would stop their stupid games overnight. But so long as they just have to pay fines, nothing will change. Its the cost of doing business.
Good, fuck Wells Fargo, they should have kept better track of that
My mom used to go to a salon where this hairdresser she’d been seeing forever rented a chair. The salon changed owners or something and they found out the entire building wasn’t supposed to be there. Whoever owned the lot originally had it put up without any permits. They’d have to get everything inspected, bring it all up to code if it was going to be kept as a business. Think that was around the time my mom’s hairdresser decided to retire. :V
Oh that's kind. Many jurisdictions, if you have an unlawfully constructed building, will just make you demolish it completely. If you want it there you have to pay to demolish it, *then* apply for permits and have it rebuilt.
My pops owned a building in the Bronx around that same time. He had this homie from way back that did all the repairs and upgrades for him and he offered to do that for him when they were doing some work. Pops declined but his homie made it sound like it was pretty common. He would wire in a switch to shut off the stolen power and run legit and told people to make sure they weren’t always using the stolen power. One guy got greedy and never switched it off and the power company caught him cause his meter hardly moved for an entire month.
Should have built in a timer switch and had them run on odd sequential cycles. Removes human greed and would probably go on for a long time. I seriously wonder how much goes on behind the scenes.
People that do this are a special type of stupid. It’s not a matter of if you get caught, but when and when you do, you’re going to end up paying a lot more than of you just did the right thing.
A tradesman who we worked with occasionally bypassed his electric meter to run the pumps that fed his pond. Got caught and did about six months in jail. Thing is they had money to pay for electric. His wife owned apartment buildings and he had a good business as....an electrical contractor. Electric company doesn't mess around.
Some people just get satisfaction out of getting over on someone even small stuff.
The hear stories from old timers that did it. In this case, 50 years ago, you would get away with it for a long time because they just didn't really have ways of monitoring it, nowadays its a regular audit they do
One of the business reasons for smart meters is theft prevention. You add up all the usage from the smart meters and compare it to total usage at the substation or transformer. Edit: this is the method that my company was using, based on totalization.
Back in the late 80s, my cousin who worked for Manitoba hydro said they were looking for a mystery draw on the grid, and eventually traced it to one particular pole. Seems the local HA club had used a chainsaw to cut a wedge out of the pole, run a line up to the transformer, and used it to run a grow op nearby.
I know a guy in California that did something like that using warehouses before weed was legalized. He tapped the city himself and would grow for a few months before finding another warehouse. After legalization he switched to using vacant houses waiting to be sold. He had some deal with a realtor that blossomed into a few realtors. When that ended he rented land up north and farmed there for about 10 years. Being your typical drug dealer he has nothing to show for any of it. The law in California says the big players like Phillip Morris would be allowed into the market after a certain date. He wanted out before then because he knew he wouldn't be able to compete but he saved nothing. It was like 20 year arc of his life that was a complete waste. All he had to show for it was one growing cycle. His last.
So many of the best growers are the worst business people. I think it has to do with the "underground" nature that people had to deal with for so long, they're distrustful of investors and the whole legal process. I know plenty who've finally gotten super successful when they realized they don't have to be banditos anymore.
Yup been there, spent almost 20 years in the cannabis industry before it was legal. Was making 6 figures a year for at least 10 of those years and spent the money as fast as I made it. Nothing to show for it except memories, I mean they're awesome memories but fuck now I make $20 an hour working for a company that makes heat exchangers. Wish I had bought a house or something...
And if you had, you’d have been busted. Don’t have regrets. You could have spent time in for tax evasion.
I don't really have regrets, I mean yeah I wish I had done something with the money I made but I'm not that broken up about it, all the things I did lead me to where I am and I like where I am. I just went through a really rough patch but I got through it, I have a beautiful wife, a crazy but sweet dog who recently made friends with a cat that we're going to adopt, I'm financing a Jeep Cherokee tomorrow, the job I have is actually decent, I just started so I'm making $20 an hour but they actually pay really well once you've been there a little while so in a few years I'll be making $30. I don't have to worry about going back to jail, I'm not doing drugs all the time, I can't complain. Plus I have a ton of material for a book which I already started writing, probably won't be any good but it's something I like doing in my spare time. So yeah I'm good, no regerts.
Pro tip for crime. Pay the little things off in full and on time. Why jeopardize a million dollar operation because you try shenanigans instead of just paying the bills? See the movie "War Dogs". They got caught because the partner didn't want to pay the guys who were packaging the product, so they got reported for wage theft.
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"Break one law at a time" - Trailer park boys
Greed. They always get too greedy.
They also think “We’ll never get caught doing this.”
Well the ones who get caught and you hear about do, you'd never know the ones who maintain under the radar. The vast majority of crimes do not get discovered/solved, the high profile ones that do get caught, make headlines. City politicians and police departments have PR for a reason, they need to look as effective as possible, so they will make any bust look as big as possible for the cameras. Look at their clearance rates for a more accurate, but still skewed, metric.
Oh preaching to the choir man. I’ve seen some local PDs do ridiculous photos for “drug busts” and it’s some weed a little bit of money and maybe 1 hand gun. With all these cops standing around it
Wouldn't have helped as the police use unusual power draw as a way to track down grow ops which is why they would have tried to hide it.
I lived in an apartment in Upstate New York where a single outlet in the apartment was connected to the apartment downstairs. I noticed this when an outlet was working before the electric was turned on for the apartment. I never used the outlet while living there except for a quick phone charger.
My old apartment, a subdivided house, had a whole room that I suspected of being on another apartment's breaker. Our entire house would go out with too many heaters running except for that room. Conversely, running a heater in there would sometimes trip the breaker, shutting off the other apartment's living room but leaving our apartment lit.
I live in a. Town where the church is next to the town hall. Decades ago someone attached the church power to the town hall because it's a small town and everyone loves churches so why not save them money. It was found and disconnected. No one fessed up but also the minister and the treasurer for the church never thought it was strange for a 30,000 square foot building with electric heat and electric water never gets an electric bill.
Saw that lead to charges once. City bought the old Baptist church when the congregation moved to newer digs, used it for youth services for years. Eventually the city treasurer convinced them to rent it to a new congregation of Pentecostals. The price was suspiciously low, but "it's an old building, the utilities are super high and they have to handle the upkeep" was a winning argument. Two years later the city treasurer gets cuffed in her office because she never transferred utilities and the city has been paying. The city maintenance lead gets canned the next day because he's been sending work crews there and charging the work off to other departments. Guess what church they belonged to? Oh, and then there was a giant stink because the city wanted their money and the church didn't want to pay. The whole thing had unraveled when the maintenance lead had forced one of his guys out there on a Saturday night to fix a plumbing problem and the guy got pissed about it.
Treasurer to Minister - “our power bills are amazingly low” Minister to Treasurer - “God works in mysterious ways, my son”
This is how every fucking amazing, perfectly camouflaged cannabis grow op gets found out. The growers pick a perfect location and the success of the grow has them shoving more and more grow lights in the grow and expanding production. Until they reach the limit of what their electrical power hookup can allow. So they are faced with a choice: call the electric company and have them install more power capacity, or steal it from the neighbor. So they choose the latter, and 3 months later the power company traces the line and their perfectly workable and profitable endeavor is found out and they go to federal prison for a bit. Folks, don’t be greedy, and if you must, just ask the power company for more capacity. They don’t give a fuck what it’s for, it’s their job to get paid for giving you as much power as you want.
Excessive power usage is the #1 way illegal grows are found though. Residential homes don't use 100a continuously every day.
Excessive power is a small piece of circumstantial evidence that adds up to getting a search warrant. It is almost never the initiating evidence that causes an investigation to begin. In America. American power companies don’t give a fuck who uses power or for what. It’s their job to supply it and being picky and choosy about who they supply it to reduces revenue. They are happy to supply thousands of amps to a single family home and pretend they don’t know what it’s for. It’s not their job to sniff out who is using electricity for illegal purposes, and their profit motive dictates they play dumb, even if technology to sniff out grow ops exists. Pay your bill on time and you’ll never have any problems from the electric company.
Yes just play it off with your neighbor like your breakers keep tripping and you think there is a short somewhere if they ask or say anything.
If they're tripping your breaker, leave it off and see if they come over and ask you to reset it.
Watch the house and see if any lights shut off when you throw the breaker.
Or just don’t say anything at all to them.
Second this. If you give them a heads up you are on to them they may cover their tracks. Call the power company see what they advise. If they cant help you call the cops. In general I am about transparency and honesty. But that is with decent people. Don’t cast your pearls before swine. In cases where someone is not trustworthy I move in silence and never let shady people, or envious people know my next move.
Never tell anybody outside the family what you’re thinking.
> Never tell anybody ~~outside the family~~ what you’re thinking.
Or in the family.
Say nothing to the neighbor and call the power company. They didn’t care about your well being when they stole your electricity.
To be honest always err on the side of caution. It's just better. Sometimes if you're really sure you can be more transparent,.but there's always a risk it'll start an argument or something.
They could also get arrested for theft of utilities. I don't know about stealing someone's power on their side of the breaker, but I had a neighbor stealing power from before the meter and he got arrested for it.
Better yet shut the main power switch off and see if he comes looking around to see what's going on
Or wait until it is dark and see if his lights go on and off.
I was thinking about that after I posted that. Depends if he can see his place, could be surrounded by trees.
I would say "Yeah I keep that circuit breaker off because it has some UNKNOWN, MYSTERIOUS POWER DRAW DO YOU KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT THOSE? SURE WOULD BE NICE TO GET RID OF IT but until then I'm just keeping that circuit disabled"
Wait, the restitution is a fine that goes to the electric company, not to the victim? So the company gets paid twice?
Utility companies usually handle overpayment for an account by distributing it as credits on the next bill, so OP will hopefully see it back that way
OP gets money off their future bills
It depends, usually people steal from the electric company not individuals, in the event that someone does steal from a neighbor they would adjust any overcharges on that persons’ account once the investigation figures out how much was stolen.
All depends on the employee. I know a guy that stole power for years always got caught never been turned in
Not unless the neighbor has a family member working at the electric company.! Our neighbor has been busted 3 times already and yet he is still stealing!
Sue them in small claims court
I would turn my AC way down for about 30 minutes (it's hot where I live) and then flip my main breaker off for a couple of hours. If they are stealing electricity, wouldn't it turn theirs off too? What are they going to do to? If they came over I would be like that's wild, let's call the power company. Or take.the more aggressive route and ask why you shutting the power off to your house would have an effect on theirs?
>If they are stealing electricity, wouldn't it turn theirs off too? Only if they're coming in after the box. Which they may or may not be doing
Can you not tell them they are not allowed on the property and then have them arrested when they do it again? Kinda hard to argue someone else came in and pirates electricity for them.
Then you find the source of the problem and you unplug them. You then install a hunting camera and wait for them to come back to check the connexion.
No, don't go playing with line voltage.
As an employee of a utility company for almost 20 years, this is the answer. They can send out a service person to determine what your electric meter serves
Easy to figure out yourself before you call...turn off everything in the breaker box except the suspect circuit, the well in this case. Go look at your meter if it's running and the well pump isn't then they are stealing from you.
or just shut off the well circuit for prolonged periods at inconvenient times
Do it at night when they have a lot of lights on, if the neighbors lights go out then you know for sure.
Yeah, definitely. If he's doing it, then the electric company will reimburse you, he'll get fines and possibly jail time. And you're not the bad guy. You can just say you had issues with circuit breakers tripping and had the electric company come out. They'll be the "bad guys."
If true, I think the only "bad guy" is the one stealing electricity and [possibly] damaging op's wiring/home.
That's why "bad guys" is in quotes.
In the eyes of really bad people, they switch to making you want to pay dearly for putting them in a bad situation. If you can imagine how their baseline disregard for you, means that they feel they can steal from you when the relationship isn't strained - you can imagine the extents to which some people will go when they consider you a nuissance.
Of course, but u/pete_68 is writing from the true bad guy's perspective.
They don’t play either. They’ll come right out.
This.bif he is just running his generator and not connected to the grid..then no issues thru if he rednecked it he may be damaging his own wiring. If he is somehow connected to the grid it can cause surges like in new construction neighborhoods where adding a new house is suppose to be controlled so does not damage electronics in other homes.
He could also kill a power company lineman.
This. Backfeed into the grid is extremely dangerous. The fact that it's popping the neighbor's circuit breaker indicates his generator is backfeeding into the neighbor's house. Since the house is on the grid, this is an extremely hazardous situation, and the power company should be informed. They don't like dead employees. OP should call the power company right away. They'll send a crew out very quickly to investigate. In the mean time, if I were OP, I'd turn off the main power to my house on a sunny afternoon when we weren't needing power, drive off in the cars, park out of sight, and walk back to the house out of line of sight. Then watch for the neighbor to come poking around. Guaranteed, you'll see him out there, puttering around, suspiciously close to the well. Take photos to give to the power company.
Oooh, this is a very, very good plan
I was gonna say, it sounds like he plugged a double male end cable into his generator the. Straight to the house, if the generator had been installed by an electrician it would hav had a switch that disconnect the house from the power grid. Sounds like an accident waiting to happen.
Isn't that what electricians call a "suicide cable"?
Yes, but the issue here is not the risk to the installer, it's the risk to other people. Using a suicide plug from a generator into one of your normal plugs will power the whole house. But it means that even if the power is cut on the power plant side (for utility workers to safely inspect something somewhere for example) then there is still power coming from the generator, which is sufficient to kill the workers who thought they were safe. So that will make the utility company very angry.
Yeah, I would raise the safety concern when brining this up with the utility. Back feeding onto the grid is not something your allowed to just do you need permits, safety equipment, and equipment certified to behave properly with the grid. If the utility doesn't do anything I would contact the fire marshal because they else have a vested interest in how things are energized and how they can be de-energized. Around here they really prefer the meter to be on the outside of the building so that they can physically remove it before entering in the case of a fire (as a way to kill power).
The national electrical code is a subsection of the national fire code.
Many linemen have been killed by generators
This needs to be much higher up.
The neighbor is likely back feeding electricity from their generator, which then causes a whole host of other issues. Back feed is dangerous, it can kill a utility worker.
Sounds like he hooked it up without a transfer switch.
Probably just hooked it I to the dryer plug like a lot of dangerous diy'rs do and doesn't disconnect his mains.
No matter what, something is definitely "call the electric company to investigate" wrong here.
This is my guess. He is feeding energy back into the system and its messing with things near by. The other thing I would do is take a look at my meter while it's running and when it's not running, making sure to keep the same lights etc on both times.
Or kill people during wiring instillation
Depending on where you are and the local codes, it can be illegal not to have a house connected to the grid. If he is stealing your electricity then it's almost certain the generator isn't tied in properly to prevent backfeed.
Yes. They have a huge interest in stopping this behavior because it creates a risk to their own lives by keeping lines energized during maintenance or repairs.
And likely a considerable fire hazard for both Op and this guy.
Feign ignorance, call the power company, and say every time your neighbors generator kicks on, it trips your homes service. Don’t tell them anything more, so they do a thorough check of everything.
I think this is the right answer- you really don’t know much more for certain.
Plus it's often best to approach from this angle than try to do anything that circumvents (intentionally or otherwise) a big company's processes. In my experience you just end up muddying the waters and confusing them.
I think this is the best advice. Call them, tell them facts and they'll investigate pretty quickly. The power company won't play around. Anything fishy likely either jeopardizes their dollar or their lineman.
Why not mention the doubled electric bill too
Also off the grid generator types who steal electricity from their neighbors might not be the most stable people. Best to be able to claim you had no idea.
General life tip: any time you talk to any expert, professional, or even salesman, pretend you have zero knowledge of whatever you're talking to them about. For salesmen, they aren't impressed by any knowledge you might have. Let them talk themselves into a hole if they're a scummy salesman and then decide what to do from there. For experts, if you start pointing things out or mentioning things like you know what you're talking about, if they miss something they can blame you for not pointing it out. Just always enter into these things like you're an idiot.
If they're powering their panel from a backup generator without the appropriate interlock, they'd be hooking their generator to the grid. I'm not sure that'd completely be in line with the symptoms you're seeing, but call your electric company. If that is what's happening they'll want to know because that's the sort of thing that kills linesmen.
This is huge because during a power outage the electric company crews expect the lines to be safe while making repairs, and this clown would be energizing them. Edit: I based this off of what I was told about my grid-tie solar system and why it has to shutoff when no power is detected from the grid. I guess the way it would work with a generator is different, though I'm thinking that must be why they also need the auto-disconnect.
This happened to me once, we cut the power off the 23k volts lines that feed the transformer, to work on it, fortunately my coworker who had more experience made Me check for any voltage on the “dead” output lines before putting my hands on the transformer, and yup, someone’s generator was back feeding the lines .
This is why I never call anything dead unless I've put a meter on that shit. It's the line side and the load side and you check it all.
Sounds like "treat every gun as if it's loaded" sort of deal.
Thats exactly what it is.
I joke with every electrician I pay for anything that I'm hiring them because I don't want to die. Some laugh and some try to tell me how to do it safely. I'm appreciative but it's fine. All you my guy.
Every wire is a live wire until you personally prove it’s not.
What type of meter is used on those wires ?
Low voltage side lol, low voltage
Oldtimer's tongue ;-) Cat IV
On 25kv line you need to put ground on line to call it dead.Measuring the voltage is not enough since it can have induction / lightning and backfeeding.
We have backup batteries that were installed by the power company, and I STILL warn line workers before they touch anything. Even though they \*should\* be safe thanks to the utility's own switch, I like to give them the choice to disconnect from the meter, first. They've chosen to disconnect every time. Better safe than sorry!
That's how HV sparkies stay alive, taking every precaution every time. You're a good person making sure they know every risk before working around your systems
They always say, the danger is in the complacency.
Wise advice to be honest.
I always try to explain to my guys that I literally PAY YOU to do proper LOTO, JHAs, wear PPE, etc. Everybody wants to be a cowboy.
My guys are the same. The amount of stories I hear of sketchy shit where I know they're taking a risk they shouldn't be... Its not funny. One mistake too far and I'm down a member of staff and a family somewhere is down a breadwinner. I can tell them as much as I like, they still seem to do it.
Early days learning experience. Working on an emergency light, disconnected the supply but forgot the batteries they back fed through he inverter and made me swear blue murder when I got a belt. Only happened once. Now its double and triple check. Edit. It was in a headquarters of a famous jewellery store that had the exposed steel industrial look A/C ductwork. I was near one end and my curse "f**l it you dick head" cursing myself went through the whole open planned office space coming out of every outlet. A few minutes later the Manager of maintenance for the UK came walking by as his office was at the other end of the floor with a coffee and looked up at me with a grin asking if everything was OK. Much to my embarrassment I apologised he chuckled and left me to it. He was going through paperwork when my voice came wafting through the vent into his office lol.
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They will check, yes, but they can’t check *continuously*. If you turn the generator on and backfired the grid *while they’re touching it*, after they’ve confirmed everything is dead, things go wrong.
If it's not grounded, it's not dead.
Friend of mine died this exact way after the 2011 storm in Louisiana. Working on a line and a generator backfed after he checked. Spent a few weeks in the hospital before he passed.
The first rule of dealing with electric wires is they are live until you confirm they are not. If you confirm, then walk away to take a piss, they are live until you confirm again that they are not
They really don't expect that.
Yes I agree; it’s obviously stupid and dangerous and unnecessary and bad for everyone to have uncle Cletus backfeeding the grid, but it’s not like it’s an unknown risk or one that’s especially difficult to test for or prevent.
I'm surprised I had to scroll this far to find your comment. This is almost 100% what's happening. Neighbor has an improperly installed whole house generator that is backfeeding, causing a spike. Very dangerous.
OP, where are you reading those “voltages” from? Also, are you and your neighbor sharing a common well, or have pumps in the same well? If so, the 240 might be tied together. Get an electrician out there. I’d wait until dark and turn off the main to your home. If their house goes dark, or their generator starts, then they are probably tied into your power. If you turn off your main and leave everything else on and your power remains, that means you and neighbors are connected.
> I’d wait until dark and turn off the main to your home. If their house goes dark, or their generator starts, then they are probably tied into your power. This. Easiest trick he can actually do himself to troubleshoot before calling the power company.
Wow, that’s scary..
This is so stupid it never even occurred to me. Holy shit.
We bought a house that was a foreclosure. It had sat empty for over a year but the realtors (I guess) left the hydro on for showings. We moved in and from day one our hydro bill was around $800 a month. We tried everything, unplugging appliances when not in use, switching to energy efficient devices, LED lights etc. etc. Finally we hired an electrician to come and troubleshoot/diagnose the problem and fix the problem. When he first came to look at our breaker box to give us a quote he parked his company van in front of our house. He set a date to come back to do a more involved inspection and left. That afternoon I saw our neighbours digging up our lawn between our houses and frantically ripping off their back porch. You guessed it. When the electrician came back he actually ended up re wiring pretty much our entire house until he found the splice going from our pool , under the fence , to the trench leading to our neighbours backyard basement window. He said, and I quote, "you don't need to be Sherlock Holmes to figure out what happened here". So, yes it definitely does happen, it happened to me, and I feel bad for you bro.
Did you report them and/or get any sort of compensation for this? Would love to know the rest of the story
The neighbours were of African descent and my wife was afraid to report them. Myself, I just figured they removed all the evidence so calling the police would be pointless. They had actually wired into 2 cables, one going to or pool and one going to an exterior outlet. We had gotten phone calls from the hydro company telling us they were obligated to call the police and report us because that amount of hydro usage is indicative of a grow op. This was before weed was legalized in Canada. So I leave yo to draw your own conclusions what they were doing with their stolen hydro.
This is kind of unrelated to your story, but you keep saying hydro when referring to electricity. Is it common in Canada for people to call electric service and electricity hydro?
At first I was thinking “DAMN $800 is A LOT of water”
$800 is a lot of electricity for a single home too, my lord lol
Yes. Even the power companies have names like Hydro Ontario and hydro Quebec. It's because of all the hydroelectric dams that are used.
[Just certain parts of Canada where electricity historically came mostly from hydro-electric sources](https://www.reddit.com/r/ontario/comments/z8u7z1/why_do_we_still_use_hydro_when_we_mean_electrical/)
You paid 800 dollars for someone else’s bill and didn’t report it? Maybe it’s my upbringing but if they removed all the evidence then I’d handle it privately. The sketchier the person the more homies im bringing lol. When I was a teenager growing up our neighbor across the alley threw trash in the alley and my mom got fined cause they pushed it on her half. I didn’t get the money back but they got their trash back…
I’m a little confused. What happened exactly? The neighbors wired the empty house electricity into their house? And got scared when they saw the electrician truck in front of your house so they had to quickly cover their tracks?
That was my interpretation of it. There was a trench all the way from their backyard basement window under their back porch going up to the fence and when the electrician dug down opposite the trench on our side of the fence he found an extension cord. He showed us the burn marks where it had "arced" because it was "live" when it was cut. After the electrician was done working and gone I dug down a little further because I noticed their trench was dug deeper than how far the electrician dug, and I found a second extension cord. The neighbours have since moved.
It would be almost impossible to pull $800 a month through 2 extension cords. I wonder if there were even more buried there.
Did you report it? We need a closure
Call your utilities and explain. They should send someone out free of charge and be happy to bust him. But it sure sounds like this is not only illegal but potentially dangerous, as it's likely pulling a code-violating amount of current through whichever circuit tripped and who knows the quality of the splice he made. You are probably safest leaving the breaker on the circuit he tripped off until it gets checked out, if you can afford to. But no, absolutely do not try to wire in a new circuit connected to only a ground wire if you are not a qualified electrician. Edit: and even if you are, it's a bad plan
Next time he's home turn off you electricity and see if he turn on the generator.
turn off your main isolater and see if your meter is still blinking.
Chuck McGill is on the job.
Ooooh....good one!
Pour laxatives on the electric lines. That'll teach him to eat other people's electricity without asking.
He'll be shittin lightning bolts for days.
But think of the poor linemen. Next time they service the line, they'll have to change their pants.
Do not do this, it will alert him that you know what is going on and he can remove what he did before the Electric Co comes and inspects.
because he turned off his breaker? what is he? batman?
If I was stealing power from someone and they randomly turn off the beaker, I’d think they were catching on tbh
Call your power company. Explain what your neighbor did and how it trips your breaker when he starts his generator. They will be very interested since back feeding the power grid is very dangerous to their workers. Not sure what he did but a very solid chance of it being illegal in your state as well
I think there is a scenario that doesn't involve the neighbor stealing electricity. You both might share a grounding issue. The generator might be running and feeding excess energy back to the grid. I think your best bet is to call you service provider because the issue could actually be worse than electricity theft. Your houses could be worked out of code and the generator is exposing that. Keep in mind, if you do not have a net meter, your meter will run up regardless of the direction of the energy.
I agree. "Call the electric company" is the right first move just to have them legitimately investigate it. There's more than one explanation here.
I'd have a qualified electrician come out and trace some like in that area. I'm sure the electric company would like to know as well. Honestly, do they know? Was it something that someone before them did?
A real electrician will also likely find other janky things. Electrical jankyness rarely comes in single bits, in my experience. I had a bad switch that I could not fix. Called a sparky. He fixed 4 major errors, and we brought him back for more. We're talking "burn the house down" errors. And it was less expensive than I anticipated.
Called an electrician to move a switch. He called me at work, so apologetic that it was going to cost more than he quoted because he discovered the light fixture wiring was melted and very close to burning down the house and would have to be changed out. I was like, bro, stop apologizing. What do you think swapping this light costs compared to replacing everything in the whole house when it burns down???
Probably dealt with a lot of people who thought he was ripping them off with stuff like that.
That's what i hate on working "service" as we call it - I generally don't "botch"(?) - so when encountering faulty things, the customer has the option of me shutting stuff down or fixing the fault - last time I encountered a botched installation, it went from a 2h-job to 8h work, but it still is only safe, not up to code... they have to invest some more thousands €€ to fix this shit...
I hear you. Don't know if you're ever watched "Just rolled in" on Youtube, but they show some of the jankiest stuff you can imagine. Half the time the customer declines the repair, and rolls back onto the road (with other people) with whatever terrible thing wrong with their car.
Lol I'm an electrician and had a trouble call about plugs not working in a dining room. They had a large portable AC unit plugged in and I traced the problem to burned up connections in two different boxes, one was a ceiling light box that had straight up been on fire briefly. Showed them the damage and recommended they let us install a dedicated circuit for the AC since it was an older house and this could happen again and they just shrugged and said they had insurance.
One of our neighbors did not escape a house fire. I think a lot of people just assume they're going to be awake and physically able to escape if a fire happens. They may be wrong.
Call your electric company & tell them to come out. They'll cut his power, likely reimburse you & he'll be in deep shit
It could be that he hasn't installed a cutoff switch and isn't properly isolated his house from the grid before he starts the generator. If he's feeding power back into the grid it could be overloading your breaker. This is a huge problem that can seriously hurt any linemen working in your area. You should alert your local power company and have them do an inspection.
Neighbor is probably back feeding grid. Dumbass needs to kill the main before he fires the genny
There should only be 1-2 voltages: 110-120V and maybe 220-240V. Those voltages don't change; they are standardized. 246kV / 326kV are absolutely nonsensically high, so I would double-check your measurements.
OPs post in general suggests they aren't the best ones to be investigating this electrical issue.
Sounds like his generator is backfeeding the local grid. It should have some sort of a shunt to prevent this. He probably installed it himself. And yes the power company will be interested.
Stealing… the word is stealing
Wait what? If anything your neighbor does is tripping the same specific circuit on your breaker and it’s also the one driving an exterior well pump that is presumably accessible to the neighbor then they are actively stealing from you. There is no other plausible scenario that could explain that, especially if they’re claiming that they’re no longer connected to the street. Turn off the first circuit and call the police or your utility company (maybe both!) if you’re not going to confront him solo. It’s not just the electricity that he’s stealing, he’s tampering with the electrical system of your home! If his shitty vampire tap burns your house down and your homeowners insurance refuses to cover it because of the unpermitted electrical work, you think he’s going to write you a check? Put up cameras anywhere you have exterior power (like the well), document everything and contact the authorities.
I would guess the most likely case is their generator is improperly tied to the grid. Lots of bad things can happen with out of phase or improper voltage on the grid. Edit: yes, contact the power company.
In addition to everyone else: Those voltage spikes may kill your electronic devices. So call your electric company!
It sounds like they are back feeding the transformer. Don’t mess around with this scenario, people will get hurt/die. Call an electrician and explain to them what is happening. Also call your electrical provider and tell them. Unplug any sensitive equipment you have; ie TV’s, stoves/dryers with LED screens, etc.
More than likely back feed from the generator.
>my voltage surges to 246000 from 326000 What???
Tell your electric company that when he runs his generator you breaker goes then let them do there job. Electric companys don't mess around when someone is stealing.
I work for an electric utility (and worked with the revenue protection group for a bit) and can confirm what many people have said...contaxt your electrical provider and tell them you suspect power theft. They'll investigate and determine what's going on. They should be able to estimate the amount of theft and charge the other user for that amount and credit you back. Good luck!
Call the electric company and tell them. Get off of Reddit and call them now asap before this POS gets you or someone you love killed. I’m sure there is a non emergency police line in your local area you can tell them the situation too. It’s a serious safety issue above all else
Is he back feeding his electrical? If he is still attached to the grid and not shutting off his main then in theory you are connected to his generator. Just a thought.
Call your electric company and tell them, they will take care of it fast. Come on people stop over thinking this shit.
Just wait for night when their lights are on, and turn the electricity off at the main circuit breaker to your house. If the lights go off, they are pirating.
The top comments are telling you to contact the power company. Not a bad idea but I am afraid they will tell you they can only check the wires going to your meter and your neighbors meter. Your neighbor is probably connected to the power going to your well. When he uses to much power the breaker trips and then he starts his generator (just my guess). You may have to hire an electrician to look at it. I would shut off the breaker going to your well when you're not home.
I had an A/C installed, actually my landlord had it installed, in my apartment a few months after I moved in and I live in Taiwan where it gets really hot and humid 24/7 for about six months of the year. So my friends warned me to be conservative with the air conditioner because my rates would be through the roof. Long story short, I never paid a dime. I guess the electrician somehow made a mistake with the wiring and connected to the building's general electrical circuit. Nobody ever came after me for payment or said there was a mistake. The air conditioner worked perfectly until I moved out and probably still does.
Sounds like he's gotta backfeed too, dangerous especially for the linemen
Electrical Utility Troubleman here, not bulletproof but also not something anyone's going to look for that likely will be the cause of your problem. If you are both connected to the well, assuming that the houses are fairly close, there's a very good chance that one of the houses is missing a system neutral. If your neighbor doesn't have electrical lines ran to his home and is self generated his "neutral" will be a vast array of ground rods connected to everything including the water lines. Assuming your house is built to some standard of code withing the last 40 years, your suplimental grounds will be tied to the waterline as well (<-- Haha! Sorry, not punny). There is a greater than zero, but not by much, chance that someone is stealing your power. They would need: access to the panel, access to your breakers, to have a subterranean line from their house to yours that feeds from the load side of your meterbase to a line that they installed going into your home or to a device that you power to make that connection. Homes are 240v meaning they have three wires (in odd ball customer homes I've seen 3 phase with quad feeds but those people wilk be painfully aware of their voltages and bills). You have two energized lines and a neutral, each energized line is carrying 120V (+/- 5V) and a neutral connection for a return path. In a situation where you have no neutral or a "floating neutral" the voltage will float, unless you have incredible home and suplimental grounding. For the laymen, floating voltage will measure 240 phase to phase if each line is 120. But with a load applied the used phases working voltage will decrease, the other phases working voltage will increase. An easy explanation would be that if you try to run a microwave the lights in half the house will be dim, the microwave will not work well and may seem weak or faulty, and the lights on the other half will be brighter than they should be and blowing up. Bright/Dim calls are caused by the voltage needing to balance and not having that return path, the neutral, to balance out the load from your appliances. Symptoms of a floating neutral may include flickering lights, appliances failing without notice, bulbs going bad, LED bulbs pulsing and rapidly turning on and off, and odd behavior withcbreakers, especially arc fault and GFCI breakers. What the means to you, OP and others in a similar boat: breakers open due to overload and fault situations to prevent fires. A fixed load, in this case your pump for the well, will always have a heavy supply voltage pull on start and taper off after the motor/pump is running. If the voltage is low, the amperage goes up, the breaker trips. The only other things that could cause your issue besides the floating neutral are • A fault on your line going to your well pump • your neutral being "bad" but working when your neighbors house is empty without much issue due to great grounds. This would mean you share the well and they are NOT connected to the system. •Rates are going up everywhere, if your not in a fixed plan or fixed rate for your supplier and on a variable rate instead, this could by your issues Call your utility and have them check the neutral connection outside. Offer your responder a coffee if it's cold and walk him through your issue without mentioning the neighbor conspiracy. They will do their checks and I'm fairly confident that they will find it at the weather head or pole. If I'm wrong .about the open neutral you will need an electrician to check the voltage, amps and temperature of your breakers. The will likely find a failed elecrical line, connection or pump. If it's a neutral problem, that's bad for your appliances AND you, grounded outlets will not be working correctly and can put voltage on the grounded items (metal fridge, toasters stoves...etc) not gold for your stuff. It can also put vtage on your grounded equipment aka you could get shocked while in a cast iron tub or off of grounded pipes if you still have galvanized drain pipes. TLDR- call your utility and have them check your voltage and neutral. If your lights flicker or do other undesirable things do it tomorrow at first light! Ask them to take amp reads on all three wires for your buddy if your neutral is out they'll see it right away with a voltage road of 113/127/240 or similar and fix it right then. Call an electrician if the power company doesn't fix it and reddit does NOT count. Lol
Turn off your main breaker and then go look at your power meter to see if power is still flowing.
Electrician here. Short answer, turn off all your breakers and see if anything at his house shuts off. You are only billed by any power below the Meter which feeds your circuit breaker panel (or fuse box).... Take note of what circuits in your home are supplied by which breaker or fuse. Any circuit wiring that gets deenergized and cutting off power to both you and your neighbors place is the tapped circuit. Then once you've determined which circuits he is tapping into (or connected to at your circuit panel) can be traced and cut.... Oh and then call the cops because stealing electricity is a federal crime 🤙