Stealing my electric

[SyconsciousAu]

If I were in a more hostile state

I've heard a lot of people run with the I'm in Texas I'm good to go line but I also see people being charged with murder and manslaughter in Texas following home defence situations so I, personally, would want the peace of mind.

 

[sebastiantombs]

They are on a separate breaker too thankfully

I thought about getting something like this and wiring them in the attic to each of the outlets that are accessible to the public

https://www.amazon.com/Aeotec-Security-controller-electricity-consumption/dp/B00MBIRF5W

The quality seems a bit suspect though, and its expensive

That's a pretty expensive solution unless it's a regular problem. I'd be cautious with it, too. It's rated for a 40 amp resistive load but what about an inductive load, like a string trimmer, blower, hedge trimmer, drill, Skil saw or whatever? I suspect the magic smoke would leak out pretty quickly.

 

[Rocinante]

They already looks suspect, so I had the camera feed up already, that's how I got there so fast

I'm no lawyer, but according to TX law if someone trespasses and then commits or attempts to commit Robbery/Burglary then deadly force is justifiable, and a Burglary Occurs When someone enters Without Consent Of The Owner Or Remains Concealed In Any Portion Of A Building

For purposes of determining if a burglary has occurred, Texas law provides, a person enters a building or habitation when: Any Part Of Their Body Any Physical Object Connected To Their Body Intrudes Into A Building Or Habitation

So I guess the question here is, does the prongs in their plug "enter" my building? That's for deadly force, not merely cutting off the plug. So I think I'd be well and truly in the clear

But, maybe I'm a crappy fake lawyer

Telling the court that you had video evidence of them siphoning your electricity but you decided to shoot them anyway is not a good idea because they didn't appear to be a threat.

I would leave out the part that you had video evidence and state that you caught them by surprise. All hypothetical, of course.

 

[samplenhold]

Many years ago I lived in NOLA on a corner. My garage was on the side of the house. It was only 6 feet or so from the street. There was an outlet at the garage door. One day I had to go to a wellsite on Avery Island so I left the office at 10am and headed home to get changed. When I pulled up there was a car on my side yard across the driveway up on jack stands. there was a compressor much like that one plugged into my outlet, but no one was around. So I went inside and killed the breaker. But I had to get going to the wellsite, so I left. I called my wife when she got home from work and told her about it and asked if it was still there and she said 'no'.

When I got back from the wellsite a few days later, I asked the old timer across the street about it and he told me that a guy three blocks down had been using that spot for about 4 months to do shade tree mechanic work. He thought I knew about it. He also told me the guy had gone to the auto parts store on Carrolton and came back after I had left. He said the guy was pissed that I had killed the power as he could not use his impact tools to do the job and had to put the wheels back on by hand.

That weekend, I installed a switch inside to kill the power to that outlet. He never came back that I know of.

 

[CCTVCam]

If he would have simply knocked on the door and asked, permission would likely have been granted. That is the problem.
Pizza man needs to have an inline switch to pump 220 volts into that outlet for future offenders.

I totally agree. I have my outside outlet on the outside of my garage wall. Inside behind the garage door next to my light switch is an externally rated switch (with power LED) that controls the supply to ther external switch. If I'm mowing the lawn or using power tools, it gets switched on. The rest of the time it's off. I have no reason to suspect anyone would steal my electricty but for the cost of fitting an external rated switch (mine's externally rated even though indoors as garages can suffer leaks), it's not worth not fitting. All it takes is a workman next door who fancies using your electrcity to power his 3kw device all day and that's the switch paid for in probably 1 day. Other than that, it's peace of mind and one less thing that can be stolen.

 

[SJGUSMC21]

^^^Now you got me thinking....

 

[IAmATeaf]

I’m in the UK so excuse the stupid questions but who were they, what were they doing on your property and what did they plug in, was it a compressor as mentioned in a previous reply?