"They" do say that you should always be careful to check your bills and statements for mistakes; a rule even the Poorhouse tries to comply with when wakefulness permits.

This turned out to be just as well as a rather surprising missive came from Meterplus recently. Meterplus is another name for nPower, a company that supplies electricity and gas to consumers, both domestic and business. Their letter to the Poorhouse was rather stern.

A slightly-anonymity-censored version can be seen below. To quote, rather than the traditional method of sending some bills and waiting for them to be paid, the letters stated that "One of our agents called to disconnect your supply but was unable to gain access to your premises". Thank goodness the Poorhouse has door locks eh?

"We are now applying to the local Magistrate for a Warrant of Entry...Once we have obtained the warrant, our agents will be calling again to disconnect your supply" and then some blurb about how it will cost me extra hundreds of pounds.

They also thoughtfully included a "Human Rights Notification" inviting me to go to court if I have any reasons why I feel the warrant should not be issued, and, thoughtfully, a reminder to go get a solicitor. After they have the warrant, "we have the right to enter your premises, if necessary by force."

Sounds expensive arrangements for a poor domestic customer? Not really. The bill was for £8030.53. Yes, eight thousand something UK pounds.

This was rather surprising to me, both because the amount seems a little unrealistic for your average electricity bill, and the fact that I have never used nPower as my supplier in the Poorhouse (brick version).

Of course, this warranted phone calls. Literally hours of them, and not free ones either. Fortunately, the nPower theme music (the Turtle's Happy Together) is quite a good song, even on repeat-hold for long periods. In fact, this must happen all the time; the lyrics include:

"If I should call you up, invest a dime
And you say you belong to me and ease my mind"

Although since the uber-inflation of the 20th century, a dime seemingly has been replaced with £8030.53. The sentiment stands.

The calls to nPower were rather unsuccessful; sure enough the company reps - only available during office hours - were helpfulish enough, although there was perhaps a slight air of scepticism. They told me to go home and check the meter serial number to see if it matched their records. Unfortunately it did. Another nPower employee check on MPAS Online and decided that my meter was most definitely supplied by nPower and had been for years. So apparently, the other suppliers had been billing me when they shouldn't have been so I needed to ask for a refund from them. In some strange co-incidence, nPower hadn't been billing me - although they claim otherwise - when they should have been. Maybe they billed someone else. I don't open other people's post. It's not nice, or probably legal.

The other supplier, surprisingly enough, disagreed. Their database, supposedly the same one as nPower's, said I was with them with my meter serial number. This was despite the fact that it is apparently impossible for two different suppliers to exist on the same account. The Poorhouse's current theory is that this is what happened, but when someone tells you it's impossible, it's hard to persuade them otherwise.

Back to ringing nPower. I dialled the same number as before. Apparently it was the wrong one, which was strange, because it was the right one an hour before. No matter, the call centre it is. I enjoyed listening to all the options for a good while, although was disheartened that no button seemed to be allocated to the "I have been billed for £8000 when your company does nothing for me" option. The disheartenment increased as no notes had been made on my case. Still, it's a good story. It probably makes an nPower call centre operative's life more exciting.

I informed them about the other supplier, including their supplier number. More hold music. Apparently it was a bit "confusing". I agree. But either way, they still think they supply me and I owe them £8000. They are, obviously, wrong.

Despite a love for electro-gadgets of all kinds, the Poorhouse electricity costs are rather less than that on average. In fact, a swift calculation during hour two of the hold music suggested that compared to normal rates, nPower's claimed amount would have taken approximately 38 years to rack up. I have only owned the house for about 5% of that time, and indeed - whilst admittedly somewhat geriatric in body and brain - haven't actually existed on this planet for even three-quarters of it.

Other weirdness ensued. Apparently someone made a payment (presumably not much of a payment) on the account in the time since I have had this house. Someone called to query something about the account just last year. Of course, despite the accusations, court appearances, and threats to enter my property via the age old method of smashing the doors down combined with a bit of personal violence if I'm lucky, I can't be told who this person was.

The end, for now. Apparently I need to wait for both companies to send out engineers to inconvenience me but somehow hopefully work out who owns me and my house. How they do that is beyond me, but anything that avoids the hassle of finding out where the court is good enough for now. The fact that this could take "up to 14 days" and the court date is next week not exactly reassuring, but they promise it will be put on hold and I shouldn't worry about it too much at present. I am allowed save my worry for later.

So that's the end of part one. Tune in sometime in the future for part two, where we will hopefully discover whether the Poorhouse is going to get serious fines and/or prison time, whether the door will be broken down and bits ripped out of the house, is deemed a filthy liar, has neighbours who steal vast amounts of electricity to power a discrete but large cannabis farm or some other slightly more surprising ending.

If, as a normal human being would, you found this story rather tedious, why not watch a performance of what is now the nPower theme tune below as a special treat?