HERE’S a little update on a story the Chook ran almost two years ago about Hamilton Hill resident Jason Sheffield and his perplexingly high power bills (“In the dark,” Herald, November 7, 2015).

The disability pensioner suddenly started getting bimonthly power bills from Synergy that regularly topped $500, even though he lives alone with a couple of cats and only runs a handful of relatively new appliances in a one-room unit.

He was so worried about making ends meet he stopped turning lights on and took to scrambling around his unit with a torch, while sparkies brought in to investigate scratched their heads and told him something was definitely fishy.

• Jason Sheffield’s just as perplexed now his electricity bills have plummeted. Photo by Steve Grant

Mr Sheffield even contacted police, concerned a neighbour was tapping into his power supply to run a clandestine hydro set-up.

Then a couple of months ago, his bills started to plummet unexpectedly.

Mr Sheffield says he didn’t update any appliances or change anything else about his life, but now he’s supposedly using a quarter of the energy he was last year.

Relieved, but convinced his two years of financial pain were unfair, he contacted the energy supplier again, and reckons the best response they could manage was to say he should be happy with his lower bills.

by STEVE GRANT