Man applauded for response after finding neighbours were stealing his electricity

A man has been praised for his reaction after finding his neighbours were stealing his electricity.

In a pair of videos posted on TikTok, Mario Tims (@originaltims4real) found a sub-contractor installing countertops in his soon-to-be neighbour's home next door.

The first video showed him walking outside and then pointed out that the sub-contractors are running an extension cord all the way from the neighbouring house to his own plug socket.

He said: "On a scale of one-to-10, how mad would you be?"

The TikToker added another caption: "It's about a 6.5 for me!"

The video, which has more than 10m views, then explained exactly what is happening next door.

Tims said: "These people in this house next door are building a house, and they are running electricity to my house from the house that he's building. So I came early 'cause somebody they were doing it."

In a follow-up, Tims gave an update on how he handled it.

Rather than follow some commenters' instructions to "strangle" the neighbours, he called up the builder and alerted them to the situation.

The builder was "hot" with anger as he said there was no reason for the sub-contractors to be stealing Tims' power.

"They can go to the pole and they can get power. He wasn't doing this, we talked to the company, the company of course, apologised, they said we sent a...subcontractor out, a father and son who were supposed to do it and he said they have no reason to be doing that," Mario explained, and added that the building company promised to rectify the situation "immediately."

While Tims dealt with the situation calmly, many in the comments said they would have been much more angry.

One person wrote: "The power pole was RIGHT THERE. I would be so annoyed!"

Another said: "They would be paying my bill for the month."

But not Tims who, as it turns out, is a middle school teacher.

He wrote in the caption of the video: "I've been with so many families who experience sickness and death.

"The thing they've always taught me is 'Every minute we spend being mad, is one less minute we spend being happy.'"

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