Is this the exception or the norm?

[shadeOgray]

My elderly mother and father-in-law live in Baotou China. My wife just told me something I could barely comprehend was true. The power and water for the entire apartment building had been cut off for everyone because a couple people did not pay their power and water bill. I thought she was joking with me at first. I am so mad this occurred; is this legal? Is it common for this to happen in China? Does anyone have any advice that we could use?

[Kyle]

Black outs are common, but I haven't heard of this one before.

[perspectivemouse]

It's the norm, in fact it happened to me just a little over a week ago. I've been living in Beijing for almost six years and living in my current community for almost five years. There have been several times over the years where the power and/or water has been cut. The management for our community is terrible and never does anything useful, so the majority of us don't bother to pay the ridiculously expensive HOA fees. As a result, once every couple years, the management turns off the power and/or water for a few days to try and coerce people into paying the fees. And then when their contract runs out we fire them and hire a new management company and then same thing happens all over again. One year all 3 elevators in my building broke and at first the management didn't want to fix them, saying that no one pays the HOA fees, the previous management company still owed money, that it was flat out too expensive to have them fixed and that it could take up to a year to get a goverment stipend to have them fixed. It took nearly two weeks of fighting with management, calling the police, calling reporters and complaining to the government, before they finally deigned to fix two of the elevators. It's been two years and they've never bothered to fix the third one.

 

It's one of those things that's not really legal or illegal. China hasn't gotten around to making laws to protect against things like this and probably won't till something terrible happens and someone with leverage makes a big stink about it.

 

Unfortunately, the only advice I have is to sit back and enjoy the show. The older, retired folks in my community are the ones who are good at getting things solved since they have time to deal with it. It's great fun to watch them berating representatives that management sends over.

[Randy W]

The norm HERE is separate meters for each home - we pay the utility company directly. Even the older Mao-era units have separate meters

 

The only squabble we've had so far is over parking - the builder wants people to actually BUY their stupid parking places. They took us to court over it, and were told (as I understand it) - Fine! Go ahead and sell them! But nobody's buying (Yes I know that selling them is normal elsewhere). Jiaying figures that for the money (around 150000RMB) they want we could actually buy a small home WITH garage, lease out the home, and get free parking that way.

[dnoblett]

Ahh Life in China!

 

An interesting article: 5 Inconveniences of China

[Mick]

The norm HERE is separate meters for each home - we pay the utility company directly. Even the older Mao-era units have separate meters

 

The only squabble we've had so far is over parking - the builder wants people to actually BUY their stupid parking places. They took us to court over it, and were told (as I understand it) - Fine! Go ahead and sell them! But nobody's buying (Yes I know that selling them is normal elsewhere). Jiaying figures that for the money (around 150000RMB) they want we could actually buy a small home WITH garage, lease out the home, and get free parking that way.

150000 RMB for a parking space??????!!!!!!! Whoa, that's a tad on the high side to say the least. How much to use a bike rack - 50000?

[Kyle]

The norm HERE is separate meters for each home - we pay the utility company directly. Even the older Mao-era units have separate meters

 

The only squabble we've had so far is over parking - the builder wants people to actually BUY their stupid parking places. They took us to court over it, and were told (as I understand it) - Fine! Go ahead and sell them! But nobody's buying (Yes I know that selling them is normal elsewhere). Jiaying figures that for the money (around 150000RMB) they want we could actually buy a small home WITH garage, lease out the home, and get free parking that way.

150000 RMB for a parking space??????!!!!!!! Whoa, that's a tad on the high side to say the least. How much to use a bike rack - 50000?

 

 

That's funny, Mick!

[shadeOgray]

Its a wounder people don't get dead over things like this. Will be interesting when I retire there.