Our electricity bills have always been high, but I put it down to the fact that we were a large household - we have five children. But over the last three months we have really been making an effort to cut back after the latest bill put us up to £500 a month (gas and electric combined). I rang npower this morning to give them the latest reading only to find that despite our attempts to save energy our usage had actually increased.

This is now starting to a look a bit fishy. I was told our usage is 146kw a day - just over fifty thousand kw a year. Can this be right for a household of seven or are we paying for our neighbours too? We live next to a block of four flats and the electricity meter is attached to the adjoining wall.

How can we establish if we are paying for them too - and if we have been how can we get our money back? We have lived in the property for seven years.