I got 1st home. First utility bill wAY HIGH. I missed 15 out of 42 days billed away. Had lights on briefly to look around. No washer/dryer til XMAS.
Laundry - 4 washes and dries(gas) I use little electric. Have electric range & do not cook much. Use toaster oven and micro couple times a day. No TV until 3 weeks ago. A laptop computer.

I turn off lights when leave a room. 1920 wood frame house very drafty, the first bill $303. My upstairs tenant bill was $149. She is a massage therapist & does her business & personal laundry many times a week!

Previus owner said new electric boxes had some lines switched. inspector said was okay. There is something very wrong. I am on fixed income & terrified of high bills. How do I solve this problem? Who can I contact to decipher the wiring and gas line usage?

Thanks whoever is out there to help.

You need to turn off everything in the house and unplug all outlets and see if the meter is still running. If so, I would contact my local utility companies and ask for an inspection and let them know why.

A home energy audit wouldn't hurt. Many utility companies will do this for free. They run all kinds of tests to determine where you are using or leaking the most energy.

I see no way any power company is going to be much help on this one. Aside from a free energy audit, it not there job to work on inside wiring.
An electrition can use a device that just plugs into any outlet and then what looks like a ray gun is moved near your circut breaker, and it beeps and light up when it's near the breaker that's powering that outlet.
That way he can figure out what home run (the wire that runs from a circut back to the panel box) was miss wired.
There several reasons the wiring may have been done this way, for one your tenants panel may have been full so they just tapped into yours instead of adding a sub panel or changing the tenants to a larger one because of the cost involved.
How close are the two panel boxes?
Unless you spend some money on new replacement windows and insulation that house will always be drafty and cost more to heat down stairs because your heater is helping to heat the up stairs because heat rises.