Ring Builder

January 10th, 2008 admin Leave a comment Go to comments

ring builder
Way to stop electricity theft? And any legislations or acts I can quote?

We've moved into a new house that doesn't yet have side fences. As we are in a new estate, there is continued construction going on around us. We now have a problem with builders of neighbouring homes using our external powerpoint to power their tools etc. My questions are:
1. Is there a way to stop this, ie; a lock of some sort on the powerpoint for when we aren't home?
2. What are some legislations or act numbers that I can quote when ringing the builder?

Any help would be much appreciated as it is very frustrating for them to be stealing a service that we are paying for. Can we somehow claim compensation for this theft?

Thanks
Jaime

If they are coming onto your property at all, they are trespassers. If they are then using your electricity to power their equipment, they are thieves. You can call the local police to file criminal charges against the individual workers and the company. You can also initiate civil proceedings, to recover for the amount you had to pay in electricity that they stole. I would make sure to get proof of this in a variety of formats. Photographic or videographic evidence would be great, if you can catch them in the act. Also, I would take many months of electric statements to show the increase in usage during the period in question.