Free utilities

[Lamentations]

I know in a lot of abandoned buildings, there's a power box with no lock. You just take the little piece of red tape out from between the two currents, open up the meter and stuff something in between the dial and the thing that holds it to stop it from rotating, and voila! You have free power and the electric company shouldn't notice you're getting it for a few days. It isn't really good for long-term occupation.

Does anyone know how to turn on electricity with other types of houses, or turn on water?

 

[Chrisl79107]

When they shut off the water they usually pull the meter. This leaves a gap between the two pipes where meter was positioned. Most meters have a 1" inlet and outlet. You can get a short piece of flexible hose or pipe to bridge the gap. A flexible hose is better if you move between towns because not all meters will be same size. After you connect the pipe, turn the shut off valve to turn water on.

I recommend only attach the hose at night, then turn water off and disconnect every morning. If they come by to read meters they will find the gose and attach a lock, usually a barrel lock. You can watch a youtube video that describes how to remove barrel lock. Ive had better luck cutting tye lock off but that is still a pain in the ass. Some places put locks on when they pull the meter. The lock just prevents you from attaching the hose. When they return and see lock removed they tend to react much more aggressively than they do when they just find you attached a hose. If you see water company employees at the place you tampered with the lock i highly recommend that you get out of the immediate area before the police arrive. They wont always call the police but if they think someone is in the house they usually will send the police to check.

 

[Lamentations]

Pure genius

 

[Jimmy Beans]

About 12 years ago or so when all the meters were still spinning disc style I may or may not have drilled a tiny hole down into the top of the plastic case and stuck a long straightened out paper clip down the hole of the case and through the tiny hole of the spinning disc to lodge the disc in place, preventing it from spinning. That disc spinning is the only thing that makes your bill go up. If the disc can be held in place, your bill amount is at a standstill until the disc spins again.

I may or may not have gotten to know the rough date in which the meter reader came out and then simply removed the paper clip 2 days prior to give myself a small buffer of safe time & also a very small bill as a result. Once the meter reader left, I might have put the paper clip back in and rinse/repeated every other month when they'd come back out.

In one house I lived in it had a very old style glass case as opposed to the plastic ones. I had the option of buying a drill bit that was made for glass, or being a cheapskate and just smashing the fucking thing with a rock/calling them & reporting that the gardeners must have hit a rock while mowing and it needed replacement. Knowing they'd bring a plastic replacement because that was the newer type being used and also prevents that type of accident from happening again.

Then back to the same routine.. drill a tiny hole in the plastic, safety pin the hole and repeat the cycle. I think a lot of older places still have that old style disc spinning model. I might have kept a crusty old rag draped over the top of the plastic case concealing the bent over portion of the paper clip sticking out just in case one of the meter readers had a good set of binoculars, as many of them do(especially if you have an alley behind your house, they just peek over the fence and take the reading from there).

The rag also gave me a way of removing the paper clip without looking suspicious in the daylight if I ever slipped up got too close to the time the meter reader would be showing up. Just walk out there and grab the rag off the top of the meter while making sure to pinch down on the bent over paper clip in the process.

 

[The Thirteenth Orphan]

I think a lot of older places still have that old style disc spinning model.

Less and less. There has been a national standard adopted by most power companies to replace disc readers with those digital AMR's. On paper this is to provide their customers with more accurate assessments of their power consumption. In reality, this was implemented to remove their need for contract meter readers personel who went house by house gathering the numbers for billing. "Why employ thousands when we can have a computer do it for minimal cost?"

Anyways, useful post.