Paying bills is an annoying but necessary aspect of the world we live in. Most don’t even like paying their own bills, so they definitely don’t want it added to someone else’s bills.

Unfortunately, that’s exactly what happened for one family, and they didn’t realize it for years.

A mother discovered she had been paying both her and her neighbor’s electricity bills for 5 years.

Lauren GiffordThe mother of four and boutique owner recently posted a series of TikToks about her surprising discovery. According to Gifford, she had been unknowingly paying her neighbor’s electric bill as well as her own for five years.

“We just found out that we’ve been paying our neighbor’s electric bill and our own electric bill at our warehouse for the last five years,” Lauren said in the first video.

She explained that this was new information for her and her husband Jared, who was featured in some of the videos.

“We found out two weeks ago because we didn’t go to our warehouse but we still have an invoice for almost $500,” Lauren explained.

Worse, no one, not the homeowners nor the power company, helped fix this terrible mistake.

“The power company doesn’t want to deal with it,” Lauren admitted, “and neither does my landlord.”

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The homeowners told the mother and her husband to pay both utility bills from the very beginning.

“When we moved in, we were told you had two electric bills because we have a front office and a back storage room, and they both have little thermostats that you can adjust,” Lauren recalled.

The couple just listened to the instructions and They paid their bills. They had no reason to assume they were being lied to.

“We didn’t realize we were still getting electric bills for not being there until we stopped going there about five months ago,” he admitted.

Lauren and her husband insisted they didn’t think their neighbors were at fault because of their circumstances.

“Remember, we don’t think this is the neighbor’s malicious intent,” he said. “This is 100% hosthow they divided the suites and didn’t transfer our energy.”

In another video, Lauren explained how they verified they were paying for someone else’s electricity; They cut off the electricity due to the suspicious bill and they still had electricity in their tanks.

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Luckily, it looks like this story will have a happy ending for the mother.

Lauren and Jared explained in another video that they “consulted with an electrical expert” who had previously been called to testify in cases.

He informed them that their electric company, Nevada Power, had rates. Jared described the tariff as “a moral code that the company has to follow.” One of these rules is: “Customers pay for their own power, and no one else pays for theirs.”

Hopefully, the utility company and the homeowner will now cooperate, especially since Nevada Power, also known as Nevada Energy, said on its website “Paying your energy bill should be as easy as possible,” he said.

The Giffords can also take homeowners who appear to be the source of the problem to small claims court. US News and World Report noted that this is often more effective for tenants than hiring a lawyer.

Fortunately, the Giffords discovered this unfair billing practice before it was too late for them to have any recourse. Their story is a reminder that this matters Keep a close eye on your bills.

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Mary-Faith Martinez is a writer for YourTango covering entertainment, news and human interest.