Chapter 26: Behind Middle-Class Walls

Most middle-class communities had very good supporting service companies, from cleaning to security, and even community hospitals and doctors. They could provide residents with comprehensive care and service.

For these services, the people living in such communities had to spend a fair amount of money every quarter to maintain those comforts. But what they paid was worthwhile, because the money brought them a kind of “dignity” and “respectability” clearly higher than that of the lower classes.

William had just ridden his bicycle off the main road and turned into the community entrance when the security guard on duty at the guard booth stopped him. “This is a private area. You can’t go in...”

The sky had already grown somewhat dark. At first, the security guard had not noticed William’s outfit. Only after walking closer did he realize William was dressed like a typical electrician.

Generally speaking, many middle-class communities had their own electricians. The electricians’ wages did not need to be paid by the service company, but by all the homeowners in the community. On top of that, the homeowners would also pay an additional portion to the service company as a management fee.

The advantage of this arrangement was that once a household’s electrical system had a problem, the electrician would quickly appear where he was needed and solve it. But it also created other problems, such as the dissatisfaction of the power company.

Business that originally should have belonged to the power company had been taken by the service company. Naturally, they would not pretend nothing had happened. So they found a way to recover their losses: wiring aging and inspections.

The service company refused to acknowledge the power company’s demands. Then the power company used various methods, mainly threatening phone calls, to tell homeowners with community electricians that their wiring was aging, that the owners of some certain community had refused to inspect their lines, and as a result there had been a fire and several people had gone to meet Jesus, and so on.

In the end, most homeowners would request an inspection from the power company and would be willing to pay another sum for it. In fact, some people did not realize that before the end of the cycle, the service company would send the bill to their mailbox.