Electric bill and.... linguistic confusion???

When I moved from Aguada to Patillas I asked the electric authority to close my account there, but not on the last day of March, when i moved, but on April 10, because a friend were staying in my Aguada appartment till that time and she needed electricity.

So, come April 11 I went to Guayama to the local office of the same electric authority to enquire whether my account in Aguada had, in fact, been closed. They said it was not. I then asked them to please, pretty please, close it, since I no longer lived there. I also gave them my current adress to send me my deposit.
They asked me if I wanted to have an account at the new place, but I repeated that the adress is solely for them to mail me the last bill and send me back my deposit. I explained that I stayed at the new place temporarily, and my friend, who owned the house wanted to keep the account in her name. OK, they understood. They were very helpful and gave me the amount I owed for March (it was $74) and allowed me to pay it there, but could not give me a meter reading.
Oh, well, a month have passed and I received a very strange electric bill: with a new meter number, for 8 days of use (though only about $8, which was a BIG difference from my first electric bill in Aguada, also for 8 days) + unpaid previous bill suspiciously close to the amount I paid for March in Aguada.
I though it was a serious mistake and planned to go to the electric authority to try to straighten it out, but was under a few deadlines, so I postponed it.
Then I got an email from my friend that it appears I changed the electric account in her house (the casita I live in) from her name to mine, although I was not supposed to do that, but "whatever makes me happy".

No, it did not make me happy at all... but by now I am getting used to Puerto Rico, so it did not make me mad, either.
It just made me shrug my arms in resignation: now it seemed to me a normal occurence on the island dealing with local authorities: EVERYTHING that can - and a lot of things that you can't imagine could -WILL get messed up due to, say, "linguistic confusion"...
Because it can't be a total incompetence, or can it?

My first electric bill in Puerto Rico

Today I received my first electric bill here... and it is a horror story!

I looked at the amount first $60.25.

Hmm, I thought, seems a bit hig, considering that I do not have a/c, rarely use a fan (sea breeze does the job most of the time at least for now), don't cook and installed my new TV only a week ago. I do shower regularly, though, and do laundry about once a week - both washing and drying.

'Is it normal? ' I asked a couple of coworkers. 'No', they shook their heads 'it seems high'.

So I looked at the bill for more detail. First I noticed "dias de consumo" - 10.

What? I am being charged $60.25 for 10 days of very light electricity use??? It's a highway robbery! My coworkers agreed - a highway robbery. None of them pays so much for a month, much less for 10 days and they assume they use more energy than I do!

So I started to study the bill even more in detail: "compra de energia" - purchase of energy (256 kWh x 0.040909 $/kWh) - $ 10.47 + three different 'cargos' (fees, I presume) at respectively $1, $6.18 and $5.67 and finally 'compra de combustible' $36.93!

What on earth is the 'combustible' I am being charged so much for? And why am being charged for it?

Mysterious - I need to talk to my landlord, who should be able to understand that.

As for the 256 kWh - my guess is that the meter has not been read even before the previous tenants - who left unpaid energy bills for $570 - moved out. My landlord read the meter when I moved in - I did not - my bad. I don't even know where it is. I need to check it now and wait for the second bill to see how much I am actually paying for my own energy use... unless someone somehow gets his energy on my meter, but I have no idea how to check for that - other than, perhaps, turn everything off and check if the meter is running or not. Is that how it is done? Or does someone have a better idea?

Oh, brother, the pleasures of living in a society known for its, hmm, inventiveness (?) in avoiding high costs of living here, especially during recession. But whom might I be involuntarily sponsoring - if I am? Former tenants or a current energy thief?

P.S. My second electric bill was still high, but much more acceptable: $ 84 ( apparently the average of what former tenants were supposed to pay monthly) for 32 days of - still rather light - use. Which means in the first one I must have been charged for some of the previous tenants unpaid electricity use. Oh, well.

And having now lived in Puerto Rico for well over a year, I must add that it was by far the highest electric bill in PR. In my current condo, even when I was using air conditioning during the fall, when it was hot and humid inside, my bills averaged around $50 a month. Electric bills in the mountains were lower still.