£2000 electricity bill: is there anyway to know if someone is stealing off us?

spiro

Read your meter for the next few days and post the reading on here, we'll be able to give you an idea how good/bad users you are.

Torby

it equates to £22 a day usage (incl standing charge if the bill is for a quarter), so say the average price per unit it 15p, that equates to a usage of 146 units per day.

a 1000 watt hair dryer running for 1 hour would use 1 unit
a 100 watt light bulb running for 10 hours would use 1 unit
a 10Kw electric shower running for 1 hour would use 10 units (an awful long shower!)

you can see how it all builds up, I'd be inclined to think that the bill is so high because of underestimated usage in the past and it's now "caught up" when they have taken an "actual" reading.

Another problem that can arise is when the outgoing tennants give a "reading" to the electricity company as their final reading, the onus is then on the ingoing tennant to give the correct reading when taking over the premises, or if there's any dispute request an actual reading by an official ( electricity companies can differ in practices), I hope this is not the case, as you are now being billed for someone else trying to play a fast one, I have seen this in the past having worked for an electricity providor and all the comings and goings in student lets.