After the cold, windy, and rainy day and night of Halloween, we experienced flickering of some of…read moreour overhead lights in the house. It was intermittent, but sometimes it was as intense as strobing. We talked to neighbors and discovered they had had something similar going on in their homes. I made a report using the website, figuring that perhaps Consumers Energy might like to see a pattern. But then these same lights cut out completely. My girl, doing the laundry in the basement, got caught in total black, but not being a scaredy cat, she found the fuse box and said to me, "It's buzzing. I don't think it should do that." I found a flashlight and made my way to the panel. Clicking on and off each fuse, I found the one that was buzzing. I kept it off. But it was crying water. Now well after 5 on a Friday, we talked to an electrician who said that as long as we didn't mind not having certain lights - we could adapt, we decided - they'd be out Monday. Otherwise, the after hours costs would be formidable. The appliances, the furnace, etc., were all working, so we decided to wait. After 7, a troubleshooter arrived unexpectedly from Consumer's Energy. He thought the presence of water from a fusebox suggestive and disturbing. He looked and checked and assessed the outside lines and equipment - though our fingers were crossed that he'd find where the water was coming from - the numbers on his devices were within the normal range, and the insides of the meter were bone dry. So he ruled some things out, but left questions to be answered later. He was professional and thorough, and we found his counsel helpful. As I said to him, my girl and I are of a mind that when you run into solid service, you say so, preferably by communicating to the boss of the person who provided you such good service, about your satisfaction. The Consumers Energy website makes that impossible. So I made a phone call instead.

Random bill spikes, rude and dishonest CSRs, outage restoration nightmares, tried to start a fire…read morenear my house because they replaced a line but didn't disconnect the old one that they just left in the brush, before powering back on (morons), and constant messaging about how wonderful they are (no, you aren't).