It was going to turn into a war. And the crazy part is that night was only the beginning because when I checked my system logs the next morning, I realized Diane hadn’t just borrowed electricity once. She’d been doing it for weeks. And that discovery changed everything. The next morning, I made coffee, sat down at my workbench in the garage, and opened the system logs. At first, I was just curious. I figured maybe Diane had plugged in once before, and I hadn’t noticed, maybe twice.
But the numbers on the screen told a very different story. Every night for almost 3 weeks, there were these identical spikes in power usage. Always starting somewhere between midnight and 2:00 in the morning. Always lasting 3 to 4 hours. Always pulling enough energy to charge most of an electric vehicle battery. My system tracks everything down to the minute. Voltage draw, inverter load, battery discharge, solar recovery. The next day, there was no question about what I was looking at.
Diane had been walking over in the middle of the night and plugging her car into my private charger like it was a public gas station. I leaned back in the chair and just stared at the screen for a while. The thing that bothered me wasn’t even the electricity. I mean, sure, it added up a few dozen dollars each time, maybe more depending on the load. But that wasn’t really the point. What bothered me was the entitlement, the assumption that because something existed, she could just take it.
Around noon, I printed out the usage reports, graphs, timestamps, power draw totals. The whole thing looked like something you’d bring into a courtroom. Then I walked three houses down and knocked on Diane’s door. She answered wearing a blazer like it was a business meeting. “Can I help you?” she said. I held up the papers. “I thought we should talk about last night.” Her eyes flicked down to the pages. “Then back to me.” “Oh, that.” She didn’t even pretend to be embarrassed.
You plugged your car into my charger? I said, “Well, technically,” she replied calmly. “Your charger is outside your home.” I blinked. “Yes, and since we live in a shared residential community,” she continued. I assumed it was available when not in use. For a moment, I didn’t even know how to respond to that. “Diane,” I said slowly. “That outlet is connected to my private solar system.” She shrugged. “It’s renewable energy. That doesn’t make it public.” She crossed her arms.
