On A Budget
I moved into an apartment that was considered below-market housing. Basically, that means the landlord gets a tax cut for renting the place at a cheaper than the market rate, and it’s part of a registry used by social services to help people find housing, but anyone is allowed to move in.
Anyway, we knew the landlord, so he knocked a little bit more rent off the place since the last tenants hadn’t paid in over a year and he just wanted to rent it to someone he knew could pay. I transferred my electricity account over from the old address to the new one and there were no issues, but at the new address, I had been put on income-discounted pricing.
I was thrilled because my income was $200 per month too much to qualify, but still very low. For over a year I had discounted electricity until the company realized the account holder didn’t qualify. Apparently, it was just tied to the address because every previous tenant had qualified and nobody looked twice.
When it was finally caught, the electric company was very nice about it and put me on budget billing. Normally they would have made me repay the difference from the discount, but they saw my income was low and waived it.