[Freeda]

I hesitated whether to post this, because I don't like dwelling on negatives; but I think that others could unknowingly be having this occur and should be aware that this can happen, even here in The Villages, where I would never have expected it would.

My husband (who was indoors) today noticed a neighbor who lives a fair distance away from us (and who we haven't met) staring at our house. Moments later, the man disappeared from view and when my husband walked to a different part of our house, he saw that the man was next to our house, leaning over; and then walked away. When my husband walked outside to see what was going on, he was shocked to see that the man had plugged his long electrical cord to a hedge trimmer into our outdoor electrical outlet, and had returned to his home, where he was busily trimming his bushes. A brief conversation ensued.

I feel sure that this would be an extremely rare occurrence, but since there are so many owners who are away for months at a time, or for those who in this economy are having to watch their expenses closely, I just thought people should be made aware of this potential, since it would never in a million years have crossed either of our minds that someone might do this (here in TV, or for that matter, anywhere else). I don't know if there is any way owners can protect themselves; does anyone know of one?

We wondered later, trying to figure out what would cause someone to do this, if maybe not all houses here have outdoor electrical outlets (although I would assume that they do), as a reason he would have done this; although when he and my husband were talking, he never offered this as a reason for what he had done. (He didn't offer any excuse; no apology; just took his cord and left). But even if that had been the reason, we would have thought someone would at least ask in advance. (And, if we had been asked, and if the reason had been that the man didn't have an outdoor outlet, or something else that was reasonable, we would have said 'fine' - it's just the boldness of using someone else's utilities without asking, rather than the actual cost, that bothered us).