Residential homes that wish to protect their privacy and prevent a burglary can do this effectively by locking their meter boxes. If your power is disrupted for any period of time it will lead to all your frozen goods going off and refrigerated items going bad as well. Imagine coming back from a Bali holiday to discover your freezer is a half frozen; stinky mess and you won't even want to open the fridge. Alternatively, if your gas supply is turned off it will necessitate relighting of your hot water system, as well as purging the air that now would be in your gas pipes from the pilot light at your hot water system going out.