Gas Company Woes

I can't believe I'm feeling sorry for my landlord. Our relationship over the last nine years has not been the best. At times he has frustated me by his decisions and even violated my privacy by entering my home without permission. At one point he decided to repaint the exterior of the duplex and painted all our windows shut and splattered paint over all of our belongings outside the house merely because he didn't let us know they were coming to paint. He was verbally abusive when frustrated with his problems and I've seen him virtually throw a temper tantrum because he wasn't smart enough to be able to replace the hot water heater without help. This is a man in his 50's we're talking about. However, we eventually came to a satisfactory working relationship and these days we can even hold intelligent conversations and agree on some things. He has been a negligent landlord, but at least he doesn't hover, so I can live with that.

So, we come to yesterday. I had noticed my gas bill continually rising to astronimical proportions for the amount of gas I use so I contacted the Gas Co. to have a rep come out and check my appliances. No big deal, right? Wrong. The gruff, but civil, rep appeared and duly checked my appliances. After he shut them all off he said the meter was still running. Thus, a gas leak somewhere. He told me to contact my landlord to get a plumber to fix it and proceeded to turn off the gas and lock the valve. You'd think that would be an excellent plan. NOT!

My landlord was very quick to return my call that a plumber was on the way and he came quickly as promised. However, with the gas off and locked he was unable to locate the leak with a gadget he has called a "sniffer" which would take him 5 minutes. Instead he has a three hour job ahead of him under the house in 90 degree weather to test all the pipes at a cost to my landlord of over $1,000.00. The gas company will not return to turn the gas back on until the leak is repaired. It seems a law was passed February 1st of this year stating that the gas company is not required to do anything beyond the meter and they are allowed to turn off the gas until repairs are made irregardless to cost to little old ladies and drowning landlords. My landlord was of course very frustrated at the expense. He has grown a little, though, and spoke to me very graciously while berating the government and the gas company equally for the problem. To his statement "I wish you had called me first" I replied, " I don't normally call you when my bills are too high". and he acknowledged that, of course, that was true. No ranting at me! No shouting at me! We were actually commiserating with each other. I felt bad for him and his dilemma. I wish I had known before what I know now...but we can't turn back the clock. He said he could not get the repairs made late yesterday afternoon and I was happy to say "no problem, I can deal with it" and let him off the hook.

Now, grant you, I expect to see an increase in my rent in the next few months...what else....but at least for the moment I can understand how he feels. That, I believe, is progress....