I wrote recently that I was suspicious about the frequency of my electricity bills. They seemed to come more than once a month. Well, today I finally got to the bottom of the mystery.
I got home yesterday to find that there were two envelopes pushed into my door frame. (This is how I receive my post) I took them inside and opened them both to find they were two electricity bills for different amounts. This was a new development – I have never received two at the same time before.
I took them downstairs to where several of the men in my house were sitting outside having a cigarette and showed them the bills. They confirmed what I suspected, that only one was mine, the other belonged to a flat on the first floor. The problem apparently was that the names on the two bills were similar – both bills were in the name of Wang.
I explained to the men, to much amusement, that I had been paying two electricity bills every month for the whole time I have been living here (over a year). I showed them some old bills I had paid and they pulled out the ones which I had paid but were not mine.
Although the downstairs Wang very rarely comes to his house, he must still have wondered why he had not received an electricity bill for over a year!
I don’t hold out much hope of getting any money back – I have thrown away almost all the bills I have paid – and they are very small (around £5 or £6 a month) so I am treating it as a kind of charitable donation.