Thanks, TXU Gas…
October 28, 2003
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Posted by Aubrey Turner
My shower this morning was unexpectedly cold as I got the last of the hot water. Thinking that something had gone wrong with the water heater I went to check and discovered that I had no gas. I just called TXU Gas to discover that while they had the right billing address (i.e. the bill got to me), they had the wrong service address. Since they don’t think anyone is actually living at my correct address, they cut off the gas yesterday. The confusion comes from the fact that there are two streets with the same name, one of which is a “Court” and the other is a “Street” (and the Court and Street are connected).
I’m on the phone with them now (so far it’s taken about 10 minutes for them to pass me around and figure out that I’m really right about the address). If they can’t get out here today and start the gas back up I’m going to be very, very unhappy. I do not look forward to another cold shower tomorrow. I guess I’m just lucky that it wasn’t so cold that I needed heat this morning.
Update: They’re supposed to be sending someone over today, although they didn’t specify a time. In the meantime I’m working from home (it’s a good thing I finished setting up my office last night; talk about timing…).
Categories: Domestic Affairs
Dude, you can turn that on yourself. Just make sure all the gas appliance are shut off, and take a crescent wrench to the meter. Not the safest option, but better than a cold shower.
Of course, they might take the whole meter assembly away these days.
Well, they didn’t take the meter assembly, but I wasn’t sure if I should be messing with the thing. Given my usual luck with mechanical stuff, I’d probably break something and end up with a gas leak. At least they got someone out the same day (they usually take two or three days to turn someone’s service back on).
Yeah, we went without hot water for three days because of THEIR screwup.
Man, my credit is still screwed up because of a clerical error by TXU! I was the first resident in a brand new apartment complex. The meter was backwards, mislabeled. I called them over twenty times, wrote three letters, got my landlord involved TWICE, but could never get someone out who was smart enough to understand the problem.
I was TRYING to pay my bill. This was after the very hot summer of 1998, and every time I called, I had to explain that I wasn’t a deadbeat who couldn’t pay, that I’d been told repeatedly that things would be fixed and not to pay until that was done.
Frustrating… I moved after nine months and finally paid the bill—the WRONG bill, I might add. I ended up paying probably one third of the electricity I actually used, although the effects have lasted much longer (in terms of my credit rating).