Originally Posted by Pierre

Well for electric, if you remember the old ones that had the spinning disc you could get a a very thin piece of metal through the casing that would stop the wheel from turning.

Gas was more fun, we just took the meter off and turned it around so it ran backwards. They got wise to that and put a plate on the back so you couldn’t do it.

Temp solution was to take off the meter attach the hoover to it and run it backwards, but that was too much messing about. So we acquired a 2nd meter from a derelict house and just swapped them over as and when.

Had to be done, could still be done today. But a smart meter would deny you any options.