First, WOW! That's high. It must be a regional thing but that's more than my 4,000 sq. foot house! Second, call your electric company and tell them EXACTLY what you just told me and ask them for a meter check (to see if your meter is broken) and an energy evaluation. They find the most helpful things. Same goes this winter with your gas bill.
EDIT...also, if someone is stealing your power, they'll find it AND if YOU haven't actually been using that much juice they'll refund you using an estimate of what your expected power usage should be.
That's nuts, that's a bigger bill than my three bedroom and we have a shitload of electronics. Like, seriously, we have probably twice as many things plugged in than most people do and our bill is still under $100.
You need to talk to your electric company, find out if something is broke.
Double and triple check everything in your house, make sure everything is turned off that you don't want on.
Doesn't make sense, in my area I have seen $20 a month bills when not using air or electric heaters. Are you getting bills directly from the utility company. One very remote possibility is a neighbor else tapped into your power.
There might be odd averaged consumption based bills that might not vary much month to month.
There are electric meters you could us for zones of the house to record their use or maybe the main power just to see hour your KWH total compares.
You should learn to read the utility company meter that should be attached to the outside of the house.
A couple search result metering systems:
http://www.theenergydetective.com/
http://www.homepower.com/articles/home-e...
A cheap thing in the stores for monitoring one outlet or maybe a power strip so you can sample their consumption of a specific appliance.
Specs are vague
http://www.homedepot.com/p/Unbranded-Kil...
I am serious - has a neighbor run an extension cord over to an outdoor plug-in of yours and is stealing your electricity? go out and look around. Or maybe something is grounded wrong.
Do you have an electric water heater tank and have it set high, and use a lot of hot water? - Maybe the hot water tank or lines are leaking somewhere, so you are paying for the continuous heating of cold water. {How much was your bill last fall - when no a/c was needed?
Don't focus on the dollar amount. Look at the USAGE (kw-hours) per month. Has that changed over the course of your rental? Can the utility give you historic usage numbers for that property?
