Regular readers will know that an investment property of mine was used for growing cannabis. You can read the post again here. After a week being jerked around by Scottish and Southern (the electricity supplier) who repeatedly told me that 're-energizing' my property was a matter of hours away, I have now been told that, actually, they can't re-connect my property at all, but that I will have to apply for a connection just as if the property was a new build.
The company that is responsible for this is EDF Energy (Eastern). These at least answer the phone promptly, if you want to order a new supply. Unfortunately, they charge an arbitrary and enormous charge for connecting a property to the network. I was quoted 'up to two and a half thousand pounds' for the job. This involves connecting two core cables which are currently separated by about an inch of air. The time it will take to do this is 'up to ten weeks'. I suppose they are very busy, what with all the thousands of new houses going up all around Hertfordshire recently.
Of course they could charge me five thousand pounds, and I'd still pay, because I can't go anywhere else. This shows the power that comes from being a monopoly provider of a good or service. Supposedly regulators and government supervision tempers the tendency of monopolies to abuse their power, but it is an irresistible temptation. I heard the other day that if you want the Immigration and Nationality Directorate to transfer a work permit or other stamp from your old (foreign) passport to your new one, they will charge you five hundred pounds. This clearly bears no relation to the cost of performing the action, but is, presumably, judged to be about as high as they will get away with, just like my re-connection charge.
What angers me about this episode is that it was all so unnecessary. Sure, electricity was being stolen, but digging up the drive and cutting into the underground armoured cable was a totally disproportionate response, which the police and EDF Energy must have know would saddle the owner with huge delays and costs. Moreover, they must have known that the person who would bear the cost would the unwitting, and duped, owner, not the criminal gang that was running the operation.
As you probably will have guessed, this is not covered by my house insurance. I will blog about that another day.
