Need More Power

tech_hunter

Ha! I bet you thought that this would be a startrek thread.

Unfortunately it is much much sadder, you see I used to have roommates but they got tired of dealing with each others bullshit and flew the coop. This has been building up the past few months. Me I pay my rent go to work come home and go to my room rarely interacting with any of them. But when I am around they each in turn complain to me about the others. These people are semi-family and I have roomed with them for a few years now so I didn't have a reason not to trust them. Well since they moved out I find that the power bill in my name has not been paid in some time. So now the electric company, Tacoma Power will not turn on my new service until the previous balance to the tune of over $800 is paid. I was lucky to secure my own place in so short a time and I am tapped out from app fees and outrageous deposits plus paying the rent on the old place. The ex-roomates are not giving me the money and wont offer any explanation as to why payments were not being made. I didn't even really realize the account was even in my name.

There is no one I can ask that can drop that kind of money I have no assets and I have no credit cards to float this on. The power company told me they wont do any kind of payment arrangements with me. I cant have it under someone else's name, they want to see a lease with the tenant the same as the account holder. Of course I already arranged to have service discontinued at the current place before they mentioned all this which seems to be set in stone now.

A friend told me that they cant deny me power at a residence I have never lived in before, they can extort a larger deposit, and they should work with me on payment arrangements.

So I come to HA to see if anyone else might have a suggestion on what I can do. I realize I am at fault for some of this mess in trusting people for things to be taken care of. I am also calling the power company back up in the morning and asking for a supervisor and going up the food chain with this.

Thanatos

Did you have any sort of agreement in writing over who was paying for what?

And did you really not put the power in your name, or do you just not remember putting the power in your name? Call up the power company, find out when, exactly, it was put in your name. If it was recently, then it will be time to call your friends and explain to them that if the $800 to pay down the bill doesn't show up, you're going to be involving the police.

In the meantime, call up Tacoma power, and if you can't come to an arrangement with the first person you talk to, ask for their supervisor. Be polite, but be firm. Don't shit-talk the last person you talked to, either, if you do get a supervisor; In fact, play them up, say they were very helpful, etc. Eventually, you should get to talk to someone who can fix this shit for you.

Donovan Puppyfucker

Surely they will be able to put you on some sort of a payment plan to pay for your current use while also paying off your bill backlog? I know the power company where I live can do that, a family member went through a lean financial period and ended up getting well behind on her bills. When she just rang up the utility companies and told them what was going on, they were very helpful, even waiving some overdue fees and such. Her cellphone company were pricks about it, though.

Darkewolfe

Yeah, you need to figure out whether this was just you forgetting some stuff and not being as involved as you should have been, or your roommates acting criminally in a way that you should take them to court over.

tech_hunter

Yeah spoke with the power company was very polite, I have worked CS positions before so I know what its like being on the other end. I asked if there was some way I could get put on a payment plan but the rep said no the entire past due balance would need to be paid for new service to be started. So I asked for a supervisor and was told the same thing. The account was in my name, I had the service transferred to that address in my name from the previous place we rented. I was just mistaken in thinking it was in one of the other roommates name. TPU is weird they want the info on all people over the age of 18 in the house. Supposedly everyone is financially responsible for the account that lives there I guess. I have never heard of a utility wanting to know who all resided in a house before I moved up here. I asked if I could have the service turned on in someone else's name, I could but the person had to be on the lease. So a friend of mine was willing to do that for me and I was talking to the office guy about it. So to my surprise the office guy calls up the building owner and they offer to just keep it in the building owner's name and I just pay the bill. So I am like yeah, that is pretty awesome!

Anyway I am partially to blame for not being involved more, but until this point everything had been fine so I didn't have any reason to think there was an issue. We had all lived together going on 3 years. I gave my rent which included a portion of the utilities, the verbal agreement was it was split evenly between all 4 of us. So I guess when the friction was building more and more everyone else was cutting back on their portions of things to prepare for them to move out. So in the meantime I will be sending in payments to get the bill paid off and I will give the other jerks a month either to pay up their portions or start the small claims process.

So thanks for the help H/A this seems to be resolved for now and thanks to the awesome people who manage my building a huge weight off of my shoulders.