Electricity is So Over Rated

Ok, so settle in for a looong story, oh, and it's not knitting related.

We just moved back to New Orleans since The Storm in December. We bought a house at the end of January. Called up the electric company, good ol' Entergy, and asked for the gas and electric to be transfered to our name. Now mind you the gas and electric were already on at the house. Entergy says that the gas and electric were turned off last May. I spoke to the previous home owners and the gas and electricity were turned ON last May, but Entergy says, "We don't make mistakes." Since the gas and electric have been off for over 6 months we are required to get an inspection from the City of New Orleans. With The Storm and all that they want to be sure people are getting the work done right.

Our house got about 6' of water during The Storm. Last year when the work was done to our house the City didn't have enough inspectors to go around so your electrician was allowed to file an affidavit with the City that they did the work. Called up the electrician that did the work on our house, let's call him "Joe". Joe tells me that City Hall lost the affidivit that he filed and now they won't accpet affidavits. Oh and they've also changed the requirement, apparantly last year things only had to be up to the '96 code and now they have to be up to the '05 code. Our house isn't up to the '05 code.

The electricity is ON already! After much debating Joe and I have come to a compromise. He will come over and finish getting the house up to code and go through the inspection. We will pay for all the needed parts. We also have to pay for the inspection ($500 for electric and another $500 for the gas). There is also a chance that the City inspector will require us to get a new meter which we will have to pay for, not cheap. Not sure how we are going to afford it.

I think the whole thing is big scam to support the good ol' boys network of New Orleans. Somebody's getting some kick backs or something for all this cr@p.

Am I the only one who finds this completely insane and unfair? I'm trying to convince the previous owners to help out with the cost of the inspections since we thought all this was taken care of when we bought the house but I'm not making much progress there.

Joe has been coming over every night this week to do the work. So the electric goes off and on until 9 or 10 pm every night. I had terrible migraine Monday night with everything that's been going on and it's been threatening to come back again. Somebody please tell me that everything will be ok and it'll be over soon.

Next time I'll tell you about the DMV in the Winnebago. Living in a disaster area is so much fun.