Rant Over the top, not good enough, or just right?

I came home today to an odd sound outside my window (I live ground floor of a condo building).
There is some guy doing work on the outside of the building with power tools. And his stuff was plugged into my electrical socket on my balcony.

I pay for power, which means I am paying for him to do his work. As far as i'm concerned, this is stealing.
I've been told that I can have anger issues. And I don't have a lot of triggers for these issues, but stealing is one of them. So when I saw this, my head exploded.

Instead of outright having a conflict with the guy. I went to my circuit panel, and turned off the power.
Noise stopped, and pretty quickly the guy was at my electrical socket trying to problem solve why his stuff stopped working.

While he was doing that I called my condo association and as calmly as I could, left a voice mail explaining to them what happened, what I did about it, why I found this to be unacceptable, and that they did not need to call me back. But they did need to make sure that this does not happen again.

Since then, they guy has unplugged his crap. And I don't know where he went(don't care either).

So. my reaction, over the top? too little, or just right?
What would you have done?

 

You handled it pretty well I think, If he is plugged into your supply with out permission it could be considered theft. I probably wouldn't have been quite so polite, there would have been a few words and probably not the most polite ones in the dictionary.

 

Spot on I would say

 

Is this uncommon?

Anyway, I think you did fine.

 

Ground floor balcony you say??

Shame that, a few floors up and you could have just pushed him off, the thieving git

 

I think you reacted very well to the situation.
I would have ended up storming up to the guy, demanding his credentials and the contact details for his boss so that I could claim some reimbursement for part of the electric bill.

I can't speak for what's the norm in Canada, but over here a hired worker is supposed to have their own power source in their van or if they need to use the property's power then they must ask the home owner.

 

Some places may have utilities included with rent.

 

Amazing...

 

I can honestly say that you were more than reasonable in your reaction, I think most would have reacted in a more volatile manner.

In essence, you returned home to find someone had trespassed/entered your private property and made use of your electrical outlet.

That is just not acceptable.

 

Not all countries have rip off electricity prices, in other words: In some countries its little more than a rounding error for the landlord while saving the tenants the hassle of dealing with utility contracts.

 

I'm not one for confrontation so that's exactly what I would have done

 

Intelligently played I would say.

 

I agree, I think you handled it just right and solved the situation whilst avoiding a confrontation.

 

Well thanks for all the positive comments, he was back this morning trying it again but I still had the power off to the outlet. Apparently the phone call yesterday did no good. Wondering if my next step to that is a written letter or a visit in person to their office. I supposed I could demand to be paid for the power that he used, but how do you assign value to that? And at the end of the day, it's not really the money. It's the principal.

As for the question of the power, yes some places include it, this is typical when you rent. I'm not renting though, this is my home. I do get free heat and hot water though which is covered through my condo fees.

 

Well that explains why energy saving isn't really interesting anyone

 

Very well played, I'd have been inclined to do a PhotonicInduction and somehow pump a few thousand volts through that outlet, see how good his powertools work then...

I'd say another phone call is in order ( speak to a human, rather than an answering machine ), or visit them in person to find out / let them know exactly what is happening ( they might not know the worker is doing things he shouldn't be )...

 

Is it just me then, that thinks it's odd to have a socket on the outside of a building. I have come across power sockets on private properties in the back garden, but a socket on the ground floor of a condo.

If it was me i would look into someway of preventing public access.

 

You could talk to him, he may not understand that it's your power and not the buildings. He may be calling the condo association trying to get an engineer to fix it

 

I'd suggest following up on your initial phone call to let them know its happening again, and maybe take a peak out the window to see if you can get a company name off the guys vehicle or a license plate. Might be worth calling into his company, letting them know a vehicle with XYZ license plate was at / near your address, and they decided they would take your power. Just let them know you aren't happy with how it was handled, he didn't ask to use it, and you find it extremely unprofessional and upsetting. Maybe take a picture or two and e-mail it to the company.

I do think you handled it very well, I personally would have probably done the same thing, trying to avoid the confrontation and just cutting them off.

 

The guy was also trespassing by being on your balcony.