Technical Flaw

How would merely turning on the stair master's control panel, which probably draws less than a 1/10 of an ampere, overload the house's circuit breakers. Even running, a stair machine doesn't draw much current.
And wasn't Patton channeling Columbo a bit too hard?

What are they doing? Why do they come here?
Some kind of instinct, memory, what they used to do.