Well, we finally figured this out. My mom lives in a quadraplex apartment and they've been renovating the building as people moved out these last few years and every time they renovated an apartment they consolidated the power onto her unit, hence it basically quadrupling over the years. We found out because my sister walked around trying to find the meters and could only find one and then talking to the neighbors and finding out electric was included in their rent. My sister is taking point on talking to the landlord for now to get reimbursed but since that's probably going nowhere it looks like we're getting the utility company and a lawyer involved about theft of services.
What in the world is going on with electricity rates in Tennessee? We pay my biological mom's electric bill on her one bedroom apartment because she's on a fixed income and it's been slowly climbing over the last 3 years to the point it's gone from $200/month to now $700/month. She has one little window a/c unit and uses the communal laundry room so she's not even running a dryer or anything. Her usage hasn't gone up according to the bill, but between rate increases, taxes and fees it's gotten out of hand. We also live in a high energy cost state (MI) but our 2,000 sq ft house is costing us less than her 500ft² apartment, this is wild. I asked my sister who lived in the same town if that was normal and she said the electric bill on her house is $1800 /month 🤯 which is more than her mortgage! Tennessee what are you doing?!