Electrical leakage is the small draw of power that many of the appliances we use have (anything with a light, clock, standby mode is drawing electricity. Berkley labs has a good write up on electrical leakage:
http://www.lbl.gov/Science-Articles/Arch...watts.html
Most utilities, inc. phone, water, electricity have a user fee... that is the fee to cover the company bringing their service into your house...
I cannot think of a time in the midwest when I wasn't billed a user fee for utilities (though my memory only clearly goes back so far, user fees seem fairly well entrenched into the cobwebs...)
ETA:Stillhope, have you looked at any of your past bills?... it almost sounds like this is the first time you have had some of these things...
Oh, and you may have had things that were powered up even when you were not living in the house, (things like your well pump, refrig. & such all may have had some small power draws to keep them running... Oh, and a biggie is the SMOKE DETECTORS.... I am sure you wanted that powered even before you moved in
It seems that you will not be expecting any charges when you are not at home, but your home may use power when you are not there.... & the only way to make sure there are no power draws is to cut the supply (through a switch or a breaker - best not to call HELCO to cancel service when you go away... you will get a charge to re-establish service.... just telling you incase....