Electricity theft in Japan

A story on Mainichi the other day about a man secretly stealing electricity from his neighbor with an extension cord is strikingly similar to another story that made the national news last week.

The incident in question took place in Sasebo City. Here’s a video embed showing FTV’s coverage of the story, complete with a comical cartoon reenactment:

A 49-year-old unemployed man was arrested for entering a neighbor’s house and stealing electricity to power a rice cooker. The electricity in the man’s house had been recently shut off due to nonpayment, so he resorted to electricity theft to cook a meal for himself.

His plan failed when his actions were noticed by his neighbor, who happened to be in a adjacent room at the time of the break-in. The neighbor called the police, who arrived and found the criminal laying around outside the house. Inspection of the rice cooker revealed that the man had accidentally set it up to heat the rice instead of actually cooking it, so he didn’t even get a chance to enjoy his meal!