I received an IMPORTANT post card from Laclede Gas in St. Louis. Laclede Gas is the gas utility that powers the water heater and a furnace in my old house in St. Louis (a house THAT COULD BE YOURS!).
Apparently, the automated data mining software hooked up to the new smart meters has determined that the vacant house is not using as much gas as an occupied house did. So the gas company sent me a card telling me that I had to schedule an inspection of the meter–to make sure I did not tamper with it, no doubt–within five days. OR ELSE something. As you can imagine, this is an inconvenience to me that I tried to explain on the phone with them. But there are procedures! My glib excuse that no one is showering there is irrelevant!
Now, with their first attempt to install the smart meters, they were not too quick to schedule an inspection if they determined I was using more gas than normal as their botched installation pumped extra gas into my basement store room–gas that I was paying for in addition to was threatened with an explosion by.
No, the errors that add to their bottom line are assumed to be okay.
Were this Facebook, my Doctor of Rhetoric friend would pop up to insinuate that this is a free market problem and that if only the Federal government would nationalize the industry, I would not be threatened with explosion or investigation. However, we in the real world know that’s not true. This little rant is not about corporations being EVIL!. It’s about annoyance with this particular corporate practice.
If this is supposed to be a “smart” meter, I’m happy I still have comparatively dumb measuring devices around the house.
Also, allow me to say to all the Laclede Gas employees who are reading this: THIS IS THE SECOND TIME IN THE LAST 8 MONTHS YOU HAVE WANTED TO INSPECT MY VACANT HOUSE.
They’ve already demanded a regular inspection of some sort that I had to arrange through my realtor. Now, they want another.