Electricity Counter

Electric Counter

In 2004, I received a letter from the retirement funds that my pension would stop because of some papers that were missing. I send a few mails to the Retirement funds and even called their help-line, but at no avail. I needed to go to Belgium and fix my pension.

I told my wife that I would need to travel to Belgium and she (and my daughter) wanted to travel with me.

I booked a flight to Belgium and started to pack everything. But I had already spend lot's of money on house items (television, DVD player, synthesizer, kitchen items, etc.) and was not keen to leave my house unguarded. Specially because there had been some burglars roaming in the village and ransacked some houses. Also some bills, like water, Cable TV and electricity needed to be paid in cash to the collector and required the tenants to be home.

Talking with my wife about this, she proposed to let her mother to live in our house while we were in Belgium. I was not keen to let her mother live in my house, but there was no other solution.

In May, a few days before our trip, my wife went to Chaiyaphum and came back with her mother.

The day before we went to Belgium, I explained to my mother-in-law (translated by my wife) that I left 15,000 Baht (about 300 USD) to pay the bills (electricity, water, cable tv., etc.) and also for her to buy some food and drink. In 2005, that was more than enough to live in Thailand in the village where I was living. The wage of worker at that time was about 9,000 Baht a month.

The next day we left for Belgium and we stayed about 1 month in Belgium.

When we returned home, at evening, there was no light in the house and the doors were closed. My wife feared that her mother did had and accident or died and ran into the house which was unlocked. On the couch was her mother sitting and eating dinner. Barbecue chicken stick with sticky rice (20 Baht/ 0.80 USD at the market).

I tried to switch the lights on, but that didn't work.
Checked the fuse panel, but everything was OK.
Went outside and noticed that the electricity counter and the water meter was gone.

I went back in the house and asked my wife who took the water and the electricity meter. My wife asked her mother and the answer was "I send 14,000 baht a day after you left to my son in Chaiyaphum to settle some loans". I was furious and told her to pack her bags and leave my house. My wife accompanied her and she left a few minutes later.

The next day, early in the morning, I went to the Provincial Electric Authority (PEA) to pay the bill and pay for the meter to be reinstalled. I also went to the Provincial Water Authority (PWA) to pay the bill and pay for the meter to be reinstalled.

Coming home, the house was a mess.
There were everywhere plastic bags with food rests, nothing was cleaned and a stench of rotting food was hanging in the house.

At midday, my wife returned and we started to clean the house up.
When I opened the fridge, a stench of rotten food came out of the fridge.
The fridge, full with food, had been almost 1 month without electricity.
Not only the food was rotten, but also some very expensive medication which I kept in the fridge was turned to waste. I carried to fridge outside and continued with cleaning.
In the early afternoon, the PEA and the PWA arrived and reinstalled the meters.

At the evening, almost everything was cleaned out (except the fridge) and we went to sleep. Before sleeping I told my wife that no way her mother would ever set a foot inside my house anymore.

A week later, the telephone bill (TOT) arrived. I opened the bill and it was almost 5,000 Baht.
Normally, the telephone bill was every month 600 Baht (18 USD) with the use of ADSL included.

I showed the bill to my wife and she called her mother.
The asnwer was: "Her mother did ask the daughter from her neighbor to help her and the daughter had used the phone to call her boyfriend in Germany. She didn't know that that would be so expensive."

That was for me the last time I let the in-laws in my house.