Guess What: I Still Ain’t Paying

Yes, I’m still fighting with the gas company and here’s why:

On Tuesday morning I’m leaving my apartment to head to work and I see a man fiddling around with the gas meters outside of my apartment complex. I look around and see a gas company truck, so I feel comfortable enough to approach the man and ask him what is going on, considering my current woes with the company.

He tells me that he came out to respond to a call from an apartment two floors under me—complaining of no heat—and he found that despite turning the switch on for the line, the apartment still wasn’t getting heat. Anyway, he came back out and found that the meters had been SWITCHED between apartments. Damn right they weren’t getting any heat. I had maintenance shut that bitch off three days before. When I came out he was putting them back in their correct positions.

I knew something was wrong. I just had no idea it would be something as shady as that. Maybe I was in denial, but it’s become clear that I live in the ghetto. These muhfuk’n shiftless ass apartment dwellers disconnected the two meters, switched them around and was running up all kinds of therms at my expense. These bammas done charged up over $300 worth of gas on my account, while I’m trying to be conservative and use space heaters and dress in layers in my damn apartment. Oh hell no. I ain’t payin’ shit.

This mess has got to be illegal. Somebody, get my local Congressman on the phone. I need yall to mandate that the gas companies offer apartment dwellers some protections against this. It’s too damn easy to maneuver. I watched the employee. He had a simple wrench, unscrewed them and shifted them around. He told me he’s seen it done before, and wished me luck getting through to the customer service department. He then marked the lines made some notes for the company and checked the line up in my apartment to make sure that everything was ok.

You know when I got to work I got straight on the phone and called the company up. I told them what I had witnessed and they said that the technician’s story corroborated what I was telling them, but that they needed to open up an investigation into the matter to see how my billing issue would be resolved. Why is this not an open and shut case? I asked to speak to a manager, but of course I got the standard “they’re in a meeting” response. This agitates me. I say is that you’re protocol for whenever someone asks to speak to a manager for you to tell them that they’re in a meeting? Cuz I’ve called all times of day and have been told the same story and I don’t accept this. Even if this all blows over corporate is going to get an email from me on this.

My next call was to the property managers at my apartment complex. After being told that this was a gas company issue and that he could not offer me any protections against this, I’m peeved. He does however say that eviction proceedings would be carried out, if what I’m saying is corroborated by the gas company. Yes, please get rid of these trifling ass people, because I don’t have time to be sitting outside guarding my gas meter with a shot gun.