Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions) Our first question comes from Jeffrey Kessler with Lehman Brothers. Please state your question.
Jeffrey Kessler - Lehman Brothers
Thank you. And thank you very much and I first want to say Bob, it has been all, I do not know how many years, but it has been a long time and great working with you. You've been a straight shooter and I think you've been a great CFO.
With that said, I have some questions about, number one, your attrition rate in the third quarter and normal seasonally it does go up in the third quarter. We would have expected that, but you did have a speak from an audit in the second quarter. Wondering if that the just 20 basis point decline in attrition is indicative of anything going on or should we have been seeing something a little bit more than that, given that there's less people moving?
Bob Ritter
Jeff, it is Bob. First of all, thank you for the very kind words. It is probably been a little over nine years since you and I met for the first time. But to deal with the question you have about the attrition, we think we were pretty much within the range of what we would expect to see in the third quarter.
There were still some moves, but one of the things you'll also notice is that we've had -- there is a little bit more financial stress out in the community these days, so we're actually seeing a slight pickup in the number of disconnects that we've had because of the financial stress that's out there.
And we believe it is well within the range of what we would anticipate and so we actually considered the third quarter to be a pretty decent one from the disconnect standpoint.
Jeffrey Kessler - Lehman Brothers
And these disconnects are generally -- are a range of items, of people not paying for a certain amount of time ranging to people completely walking away from homes?
Bob Ritter
Very few I think of the latter. It has primarily been people who are -- who will stop paying for a period of time. As you know, one of the things we also mentioned about the second quarter is that we have become more aggressive in the way that we are, following our policies for disconnections if people are not living up to the terms of their contract.
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