Electric Company Reporting

In the Houston area their are people who are stealing electricity by directly connecting power plates and extension cords on power lines. 

These people actually climb the poles and hook their cables directly into the power line trying not to get electrified in the process.  Are energy rates really getting so high that people are resorting to risking their lives.  This is just amazing to me. 

Power pirates steal $3k of electricity from woman 02:13 PM CST on Monday, January 22, 2007 By Lee McGuire / 11 News Click to watch video A man trying to keep warm in the Fifth Ward may have accidentally set fire to his own feet. KHOU Someone climbed this utility pole and tied an extension cord directly into the power line. When police arrived to help out, a much larger problem appeared. Police tried to untangle a troubling trend of people pirating power and harming others in the process. Every time CenterPoint Energy sends a technician to a certain northeast Houston neighborhood, someone else loses their electricity — and for good reason. Police said neighbors have been illegally tapping into the power lines of this rundown one bedroom home, and the $3,000 electric bill is now too much for Earline Harris to pay. “Especially when you’re on a fixed income like I am, and I don’t get but one check a month,” she said. Harris had wondered why her lights had been flickering lately. What the yellow power cords snaking around her house were for. The nearby fire that a police dashboard camera caught on Tuesday answered all her questions and gave police a new look into an old crime that’s taken an aggressive turn. “They’re in her backyard tapping into her electrical line, causing her bill to go up, and it’s not fair,” HPD Officer Pat Siddons said. Siddons said electricity theft used to be as simple as someone tapping into a power meter. But in this case, someone also climbed a utility pole and tied an extension cord directly into the power line. “They use some innovative ways to do it that are very, very dangerous, and we’re surprised that we don’t get more calls about people getting electrocuted,” Officer Siddons said. Here the man burned his own feet when he plugged a hotplate into that line. The hotplate exploded and his mattress caught fire. CenterPoint cut off the power and gave Harris a waiver for part of the bill. But five days later, officers are back, and so is the problem. “It’s unbelievable because this exact extension cord on Tuesday was going to the house on the right,” Officer Siddons said. “And now it’s going to another house.” The trail leads officers to a rental property. No one answered the door but we were watched from the window, as CenterPoint cut yet another home out of an illegal grid. The fines for stealing electricity can run into the thousands of dollars. Failure to pay those fines usually means jail time.