Pot calling

I think I might be in a bit of trouble...

I'm renting a flat from a mate and he left it fully furnished, including a kettle. I don't drink tea or coffee - I mean, what is the point?
Anyway, last night I fancied some pasta, so I picked up the kettle to fill it. And the base was hot. Very very hot.

Funny, I thought, I haven't used it since I last had pasta... Actually, I haven't made pasta since I moved in... have I? I switched the kettle on once, a few weeks ago, to boil some water for pasta but then changed my mind and had something else for dinner... but surely it would have switched itself off? I tried the on/off switch.

It was stuck in the "on" position. And had been for over a month.

Fuck.
The water had boiled off long ago. The heating filament inside looked... unhappy (and that was after I'd chipped away the thick layer of black stuff covering it). Anyway I did what any decent tenant would do *


But Lord knows what my electricity bill's going to look like... actually:

Let's say the kettle's been on for 6 weeks (ahem) continuously;

A normal 2 kiloWatt kettle uses lots of energy, but only for a few minutes at a time. UNLESS IT'S FUCKING BROKEN.

24hrs x 42 days = 1008hrs

One "Unit" of electricity is 1 kW.hour and costs about 8p

2kW x 1008 hrs = 2016 units of electricity @ 8p/unit

= £161.28

Fuck.
What an absolute fucking waste of money. I could've eaten out every day for that amount.

On the bright side, I s'pose it's a good job the house didn't catch fire - I've grown kind of fond of it.

And I reckon I'll find out how often my landlord reads my blog.


^*I boiled the water in a pan & hid the kettle in a cupboard. What? It's not my fault...