Hello everyone.
Need a legal advice.
Here is my situation. I have been renting an apartment here in Sosua from an American woman since Nov. 2007. She is a missionary - God bless her heart! She lives next door, and sometimes she is absent for a few weeks or month, and sometimes she rents her apartment where she lives when she is away. Sometimes her apartment is empty for a few weeks and nobody lives there. Electricity here is quite expensive - 12 - 13 Pesos for 1 kWatt. My monthly bills were between 4500 and 7500 approx. Considering I use electricity pretty much the same all year around except for the hottest months in summer I was somewhat puzzled why my bills differ 2-3 thousand pesos from month to month, but paid them regularly. She is in the States right now and her daugher lives in her apartment at the moment. Two days ago I looked at my electric meter and was shocked to see curent consumption of 1.7 kWatt/hr since there were only a few small things working at that moment (computer, fan, fridge on low cycle). I run into the apartment turned the main breakers off - all of them, went back to the meter - it showed 1.4 kWatt/hr. My landlady aircon in her apt was working and I looked at her meter - it showed only 300 Watts (!) - a very nice aircon, I want to get one like hers! I waited till her aircon goes off and check both meters again. Mine showed only a few Watts this time, and hers - did not change - same 300 Watts. Obvoiusly , she is stealing from me. I went to the oficina and asked them to send a guy from Edenorte to check the wiring. The guy came and found that her aircon was connected to my meter from the street. They disconnected it from me and re-connected to her meter. When I told the landlady about the problem and asked her to reimburse me for paying for her aircon all these months she got furious and told me she was not going to pay me back at all since she did not know it was connected to me, blah blah blah.... "Thou shalt not steal" is what she preached to poor Dominicans here in the DR. Stealing from her tennants is OK. She now tells me that she just fixed her airconditioner and it was broken for many months and she did not use it at all . But I know it is not true because I hear when it goes on and off - it is a few feet away from my window.
Any ideas how I can get my money back from her?
Need a legal advice.
Here is my situation. I have been renting an apartment here in Sosua from an American woman since Nov. 2007. She is a missionary - God bless her heart! She lives next door, and sometimes she is absent for a few weeks or month, and sometimes she rents her apartment where she lives when she is away. Sometimes her apartment is empty for a few weeks and nobody lives there. Electricity here is quite expensive - 12 - 13 Pesos for 1 kWatt. My monthly bills were between 4500 and 7500 approx. Considering I use electricity pretty much the same all year around except for the hottest months in summer I was somewhat puzzled why my bills differ 2-3 thousand pesos from month to month, but paid them regularly. She is in the States right now and her daugher lives in her apartment at the moment. Two days ago I looked at my electric meter and was shocked to see curent consumption of 1.7 kWatt/hr since there were only a few small things working at that moment (computer, fan, fridge on low cycle). I run into the apartment turned the main breakers off - all of them, went back to the meter - it showed 1.4 kWatt/hr. My landlady aircon in her apt was working and I looked at her meter - it showed only 300 Watts (!) - a very nice aircon, I want to get one like hers! I waited till her aircon goes off and check both meters again. Mine showed only a few Watts this time, and hers - did not change - same 300 Watts. Obvoiusly , she is stealing from me. I went to the oficina and asked them to send a guy from Edenorte to check the wiring. The guy came and found that her aircon was connected to my meter from the street. They disconnected it from me and re-connected to her meter. When I told the landlady about the problem and asked her to reimburse me for paying for her aircon all these months she got furious and told me she was not going to pay me back at all since she did not know it was connected to me, blah blah blah.... "Thou shalt not steal" is what she preached to poor Dominicans here in the DR. Stealing from her tennants is OK. She now tells me that she just fixed her airconditioner and it was broken for many months and she did not use it at all . But I know it is not true because I hear when it goes on and off - it is a few feet away from my window.
Any ideas how I can get my money back from her?
