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Personal outlets exist for a reason, especially after an entire property gets rewired because of overloaded circuits. Somehow that lesson didn’t stick for everyone.
One renter spent a month sweating through summer heat with barely enough power to run a small AC, all because a selfish neighbor had been running an extension cord straight into her outlet.
Multiple requests to cut back went nowhere, while the neighbor kept two ACs, a giant fan, and a string of outdoor lights running nonstop.
She figured she’d just wait it out until the weather cooled down. Then the breaker started tripping for good, and patience ran out.
Read on to find out what this renter did next.
AITAH for shutting off my neighbors electricity
Last year the electrical on the whole property needed to be replaced because the landlord kept putting more trailers on outlets that couldn’t handle multiple hookups.
Everyone got put on their own outlets and their own breakers.
That’s when one tenant noticed some strange behavior from her neighbor.
About a month ago, I (24F) noticed someone (60+F) was running an extension cord to my outlet, causing me to not be able to turn on anything other than a small AC.
I had to get a sheet and limit my AC to cool down a quarter of my bedroom, and it was still hot because not enough electricity was going to my AC.
I was just gonna tough it out till winter because it’s only a couple more weeks until it’s not unbearably hot anymore.
By contrast, her neighbor is kind of an electricity hog.
She runs two ACs in her trailer, a large industrial fan, all her lights are always on, and she has outside string lights always on.
I’ve asked her multiple times to only cool down half her trailer during the cool parts of the day and unplug unnecessary things, and she refuses.
Finally, the tenant is fed up enough to finally do something about it.
Today the breaker flipped. I turned it back on, and it flipped off again, so I unplugged her extension cord and put a lock on my outlet box.
I showed her where she could plug into her own outlet, and when she unplugged her extension cord, the prongs to her main wire on her trailer melted off inside of her extension cord.
This neighbor has caused some pretty serious damage with her carelessness.
This happened because she didn’t even have the right kind of extension cord, and it was running too much power into such a small cord.
It was never meant to run that much electricity, so it melted and she can’t plug into anything now.
AITA for unplugging her from my outlet?
This neighbor really needed to be stopped.
What did Reddit have to say?
This user points out that this story could have had a tragic ending.
This commenter shares their diagnosis.
This neighbor has no one to blame but herself.
If you enjoyed this post, check out this story about a woman who refuses to confine her dog for days on end because building management can’t schedule a more exact inspection time.
Some things aren’t meant to be shared.
Personal outlets aren’t a suggestion, especially after the whole property got rewired specifically to stop this exact problem.
A month of sweating through a barely functional AC is a long time to stay patient. Asking nicely, more than once, and still getting ignored is exactly the point where locking an outlet stops being petty and starts being the only reasonable solution left.
No one gets things done faster than a fed-up renter with nothing left to lose.