Thelma Taormina, Houston Homeowner, Pulls Gun on a Utility Worker Installing Smart Me

After it was installed, we have seen more problems than ever(been at this location for 6 years.) The meter was installed last year, and since then it's been nothing but trouble. Thought it was a bad breaker, had it replaced, nothing changed. And it's only when washing clothes. Started doing this the day after they changed the old meter with the new. Have had 2 different meters since then.

And comparing bills from last year, to this year. I haven't saved 1 dime.

 

What makes this job rightful? Is it the fact that it was sanctioned by a business?

Honest question. I can see both sides of the coin here. When I first read the article I was almost totally against the crazy woman. But after further review, I'm ambivalent.

 

I'm guessing it's in the terms and conditions of her agreement with her electricity provider.

 

Saw it on house hunters international on HGTV but this lady should move to New Zealand countryside where the residents all have their own solar panels, mini-windmills and individual water wells. Seemed great actually that each individual resident was in charge of providing power & water for themselves though certainly 1870's ish by living off the land. She really doesn't have that option here with the private corporate ownership of natural resources that seem to override private property rights. Modern conveniences always seem to come at a cost.

 

One More Question: Is this the moment to address the near monopoly CenterPoint has?

I mean . . . We can get other 'providers' but it seems centerpiont still 'services' all of the equipment. I think the other providers even lease from centerpoint.

Rocket River
I could be wrong . . .

 

To my knowledge, your electricity meter is owned by the electric company. They are responsible for it's maintenance.

But more to my point, whether you philosophically agree or not, a gun? Really?

 

You seriously can't base your decision on 1 data point. On top of that, the data point is YOU.

 

It's not a near monopoly; it's a monopoly. CenterPoint is the Transmission & Distribution Service Provider (TDSP) in Houston and they own all the poles and wires and transformers. When you pay a retailer like Reliant for power, Reliant pays a portion of the bill over to CenterPoint for the use of their infrastructure. No other company can have infrastructure in the same area, and it'd be kind of dumb to anyway. But, what the TDSPs are allowed to charge is dictated by ERCOT.

As for the incident, CenterPoint should have just cut the power. Forcing their way onto your property isn't right. Before smart meters, if their meter readers were blocked from seeing the meter (like having a mean dog out), they'd leave a notice on your door. Did it too many times and they'd cut the power. That's the approach they should have taken here. They do have some easement rights to reach their equipment on your property, but that wasn't the smart way to go.

 

You have old and or ****ty and or faulty wiring, it's leeching amps somewhere, and new equipment makes the problem worse. Get a master electrician to look over things. The meter has nothing to do with it, just a head's up to a bigger problem.

 

Meter is owned by Centerpoint, the socket and everything behind it, is yours. I'm in the smart meter/smart grid/advanced metering infrastructure industry, Feel free to ask me anything.

 

This would not do anything, everything Centerpoint does is highly regulated, rates are set by the PUC, even the price that they add for smart metering is determined by the PUC.

 

I'm not saying a gun was necessary specifically. But I'm not necessarily opposed to threat of force. Thankfully she didn't use it. In that case, I would be on the company's side without a doubt.

 

Obviously someone wouldn't use this to case one single house.

With the hour by hour data you could identify every home in the area where people were on vacation for a week or more. Every single one. And it wouldn't be that complex to hack. You don't have to hack the meter connection to the network. You just have to have someone on the inside giving you the information, which probably isn't that secure at a utility company to be honest.

A thief could burglarize 20 homes in a night.

Look, it's probably not a legit threat, but the point being the power company will know when you are on vacay, when you probably go to bed, and when you get up in the morning.

Maybe it's not a big deal, but ya know, it's worth having a discussion or debate over in D&D.

 

You make it seem as if these thieves are Ocean's Eleven. Any thief who has a mole on the inside is not going to be doing petty house robberies. Any thief who does petty house robberies is not going to think about your electricity usage.

You are way too paranoid.

 

Owning something on your property doesn't, in general, give you a right to access your property though. If I erected a basketball hoop in your backyard, that doesn't mean I can force my way back there whenever I want. What makes it different with CenterPoint is that the government's given them some easement rights. Even so, I don't think they're justified in forcing their way in for an individual meter. Maybe different if they have a pole in your back yard they have to get to.

You make it sound like we're safe from gouging just because it's regulated. The rates are set to guarantee a reasonable profit. And, almost everyone involved in the process are energy industry people with very little consumer interest representation.

But, the reason the TDSPs are a monopoly is that it'd be costlier and less efficient to have multiple companies running redundant power lines. The only real alternative to allowing a TDSP monopoly is to have the City or the State maintain the infrastructure, which probably isn't any better.

 

Shall I send someone over to install a new one for you?

As if she'd live inside that liberal hippy bull****.

 

It's worth having the discussion if you are paranoid beyond belief. I mean you might as well worry about all of modern cryptography f you are going to worry about someone on the inside giving out data or telling someone how to hack the system.

 

That's probably true but the initial principle of the discussion is whether you have the right to keep something off of your property if you don't want it.

It shouldn't matter what someone else thinks, you or me.

 

If you think a smart meter is an invasion of your privacy, you're an idiot.

The only people with any legitimate complaint here should be meter readers who lost thier jobs because of them.

 

And people who can't get their stuff to function right after they installed them...

http://www.khou.com/news/local/View...r-installation-problem-stories-124527004.html