03.06.06
671 Smackers
We’ve had an interesting problem here in Perugia with our gas bill. All of the bills are still in our landlord’s name. They are sent to her realtor, who then calls us and tells us how much to pay. Well about three months ago, the realtor told us that we have never received a gas bill. I thought this was strange, since I thought I had been paying it. I then found out that Enel, the gas company I thought I was paying, is also the electric company. Since I never see the bills, I just assumed that when I paid Enel it was for gas AND electric. Silly me.
So the realtor came, read the meter, and called the company to see what the deal was. And today, it arrived. A €?671 ($805) gas bill for ten months of gas. After my heart started beating again, I realized that for ten months, that didn’t seem too terrible - especially considering how expensive natural gas is here in Italy. It would have been better to pay that over the course of the year, especially since we’re moving in exactly one week.
But the thing I find really odd is this … if you didn’t pay your gas bill in the US for 10 months, even if it was because they didn’t send you any bills, wouldn’t they shut your gas off?