TromboneAl
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
- Joined
- Jun 30, 2006
- Messages
- 12,880
This story is related to this thread:
http://www.early-retirement.org/forums/f27/need-help-neighbor-dog-problem-50100.html
which you can consult for background.
Outside in my Underwear
Yesterday morning at 4 AM we were awakened by what I thought was our garage door opener. I'm thinking "who could be operating our garage door at 4 AM," so I get up and switch on the light. It comes on for a second, and then all the power goes out.
The noise is continuing, so I grab the flashlight and go downstairs. The garage door motor is not involved, and the noise is coming from the electrical panel outside. I head out there (in my underwear) and switch off the main. But the noise continues intermittently.
I can't see any other problems, so I go back to bed, put in earplugs, and go back to sleep.
You Must Call 911
We wake up at seven, and there's a noticeable electrical burning smell in the air. I call the power company (PG&E), but when I mention the burning smell, she says that I must call 911, and that they won't do anything until I do, which is reasonable.
Four firemen show up, check around, and declare things as safe. I also notice that power is out in about six houses. The power company guys show up, find some transformer and other problems, and tell us it will take a few hours to fix. So we do what we usually do in this situation: we get out of town. We took a nice day trip to the sunny, warm hinterlands.
Fireworks
We missed the excitement when PG&E reconnected the power: smoke and flames came out of the holes they'd dug to get to the underground cables. Things were shut off again.
When we get back at 3 PM, PG&E had discovered that the cables to the neighbor's house (the one with the problem dogs) had burned up underground, and burned ours, which traveled right above theirs. The smell traveled through the conduits, and into our house and another neighbor's house.
PG&E gets our electricity reconnected, then hooks up the bad neighbor's wires. BTW, the bad neighbor is nowhere in sight. Neither the woman or her son appear, although they've always seemed to be at home.
Grow House
When they connect the neighbor's house, their meter starts spinning at 90 MPH. IOW, that house is using a LOT of power.
So, the theory is that the tenant was running a grow house, and that the excessive power usage caused the power outage. My good neighbor and I have both called the landlord, and told him we won't tolerate this, and the landlord says he'll start the eviction right away.
This is great news, since those dogs have been a big problem lately, waking me up several times a week.
This shows how serious the grow house issue is in this area. Our neighborhood has been a small seaside community with quiet people and a number or retirees. There are two other suspected grow houses in the area now, and I'm going to see what can be done to shut them down.
http://www.early-retirement.org/forums/f27/need-help-neighbor-dog-problem-50100.html
which you can consult for background.
Outside in my Underwear
Yesterday morning at 4 AM we were awakened by what I thought was our garage door opener. I'm thinking "who could be operating our garage door at 4 AM," so I get up and switch on the light. It comes on for a second, and then all the power goes out.
The noise is continuing, so I grab the flashlight and go downstairs. The garage door motor is not involved, and the noise is coming from the electrical panel outside. I head out there (in my underwear) and switch off the main. But the noise continues intermittently.
I can't see any other problems, so I go back to bed, put in earplugs, and go back to sleep.
You Must Call 911
We wake up at seven, and there's a noticeable electrical burning smell in the air. I call the power company (PG&E), but when I mention the burning smell, she says that I must call 911, and that they won't do anything until I do, which is reasonable.
Four firemen show up, check around, and declare things as safe. I also notice that power is out in about six houses. The power company guys show up, find some transformer and other problems, and tell us it will take a few hours to fix. So we do what we usually do in this situation: we get out of town. We took a nice day trip to the sunny, warm hinterlands.
Fireworks
We missed the excitement when PG&E reconnected the power: smoke and flames came out of the holes they'd dug to get to the underground cables. Things were shut off again.
When we get back at 3 PM, PG&E had discovered that the cables to the neighbor's house (the one with the problem dogs) had burned up underground, and burned ours, which traveled right above theirs. The smell traveled through the conduits, and into our house and another neighbor's house.
PG&E gets our electricity reconnected, then hooks up the bad neighbor's wires. BTW, the bad neighbor is nowhere in sight. Neither the woman or her son appear, although they've always seemed to be at home.
Grow House
When they connect the neighbor's house, their meter starts spinning at 90 MPH. IOW, that house is using a LOT of power.
So, the theory is that the tenant was running a grow house, and that the excessive power usage caused the power outage. My good neighbor and I have both called the landlord, and told him we won't tolerate this, and the landlord says he'll start the eviction right away.
This is great news, since those dogs have been a big problem lately, waking me up several times a week.
This shows how serious the grow house issue is in this area. Our neighborhood has been a small seaside community with quiet people and a number or retirees. There are two other suspected grow houses in the area now, and I'm going to see what can be done to shut them down.
