Who Turned Off the Lights????
I don’t know if this is how it is in most apartment complexes but when the power goes out it seems that I become the electric company. I have lived in a couple apartments in my time and when the power goes out I would normally look out my window or out into the hallway and see if it was happening around my apartment as well. If it was then I could come to the rational conclusion that the power went out and I would have to wait for DTE (our local electric company) to get the power restored. One thing I never did was call the office and complain. Sadly though, my tenants don’t have the capacity for rational and logical thought.
I was reminded of this oddity yesterday when the power went off for no apparent reason. It was raining but not windy. My office mate said she had seen some lightning here and there but I didn’t so I took her word for it. Within minutes the phone calls started coming in. This is a sample of what the conversations are like;
Tenant: I have no power, have Jim (the maintenance man) take care of it.
Me: No one has power, it’s not just you?
Tenant: Why?
Me: I don’t know. Bad wire, lighting, car crashed into pole? I have no idea.
Tenant: Well I need power to cook dinner, when are you going to get it back on?
Me: I don’t know, I am not the power company. Call them.
Tenant: It’s your building!
Me: So. Do we charge you for electricity? No.
Tenant: Yes YOU DO!
Me: No we don’t, DTE charges you, DTE the power company. Call them.
Tenant: Well you need to fix your wiring.
Me: yeah, okay.
I have had numerous conversations with tenants exactly like this each time the power goes out. We had a large storm that knocked out power for tens of thousands of people in the the area for 2 days and each day tenants would call and yell at me for it. One tenant thought the power company was trying to scam her. I tried to explain to her that if you have no power then they can’t charge you because your meter has stopped but she came up with this odd conspiracy theory and wanted me to set in motion some sort of suit against them.
*sigh*
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