On the evening of July 17, after years of paying suspiciously high bills, the resident of Zhongshan City in Guangdong Province shut off all electrical devices in his apartment to investigate.

When he saw the meter still spinning, he called in an electrician, who discovered irregularities in the wiring system.

It was later confirmed the landlord had secretly tapped into the apartment’s electric meter. This meant Han had been unknowingly covering the landlord’s electricity use for nearly a decade.

He says: “I only make a few thousand yuan a month. My mother has a brain tumor. Yet I have been paying hundreds of yuan, sometimes over 1,000, a month for someone else’s electricity.”

Han and his wife began renting the apartment for 700 yuan a month in February 2016. He immediately noticed the high electricity bills. He assumed at first it was due to heavy air-conditioner usage. He replaced the air conditioner three times over nine years but the bills never dropped.

“When we went back to our hometown for Lunar New Year and the place was empty, we still got charged 200-300 yuan,” he says.

When he confronted the landlord the man immediately denied any wrongdoing, but after he presented the electrician’s findings he quickly called someone to remove the illegal wiring. Han recorded the entire process on video as evidence.

After reporting to the police, the landlord agreed to pay 15,000 yuan in compensation at the rate of 150 yuan per month. But Han says the amount is far less than what he had paid over nine years.

“He should pay me 30,000-40,000 yuan at the very least. He even refused to admit his fault after being caught.”

He is now considering legal action against the landlord.

He has since moved out and shared his story as a warning to other tenants.