HAYDEN, Idaho-

Anyone who has ever been to, or lived in Hayden, Idaho can tell you that it can get pretty darn cold there in the winter, being that it’s that close to the Canadian border. Hayden residents Don and Penny Fisher can attest to this personally. For three years and three months the Fishers endured frigid conditions inside their own home, surviving by building fires and bundling up because the couple could not afford the excessively high utility bills they were receiving from the Avista Corporation, the city’s gas and electric company.

But for the Fishers it wasn’t that easy. They heavily conserved on using the utilities and sacrificed comfort, but still continued to receive the high utility bills, all the while knowing they could not have possibly been racking up that much utility debt. They said the bills got so bad they had to skimp on the three Christmases during that time period. Finally, they said during the third January they got so desperate that they reported a fake gas leak to get someone from the utility company to come out and check it out. During that visit it was discovered that their meter had been crossed with their neighbor’s for those three years. One month they had paid $238 while the neighbor paid only $28. The Avista Corporation reimbursed the Fishers nearly $2,000.

The moral of the story: If you rarely use gas or electricity and still get utility bills for hundreds of dollars, don’t wait three years to fake a gas leak.

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