[Mark was here]

Two thoughts.

1. The house is not properly grounded. Proper grounding will make any static buildup next to impossible.

2. When given a lemon. make lemonade. If his property is close enough I wonder if he could be inductively coupled to the power lines. Say the power line is the primary side of a transformer, he could run a parallel length of wire and treat it as a secondary side of a transformer and have it drive a load. Free power! Another way of looking at it is the power company was broadcasting on to his property and he was merely receiving the signal.

[Issaquahking]

If his property is close enough I wonder if he could be inductively coupled to the power lines. Say the power line is the primary side of a transformer, he could run a parallel length of wire and treat it as a secondary side of a transformer and have it drive a load. Free power!

Mark,

This is known as theft of services. It is one of the charges the government(s) use when people go skiing at a ski resort, and then ignore the boundaries, and ski in closed areas. Can be good for jail, and/or fines.

[Old Professer]

Number 2 might work on D.C.

Number 1 is my guess; I searched for two hours inside a room inside a hangar for a loose ground one day, I was able to measure 95VAC from the concrete floor mounted drill press leg to ground at the outlet and the fluorescent lamps had a mind of their own.

I finally tracked it down to a 4square box on the roof of the room that the neutral had gone open.

Couldn't find the break, so I simply ran 20 feet of #12 over to a J-box and connected neutral there.

Repowered the breaker and problem fixed.