Okay. We are on an acre...city water. Last month, our water bill was $152. This month, it is $739. We are not watering the yard any different than we did last month, and we're not consuming any more water inside than we usually do.
We shut off our water inside and checked our meter to see if it was spinning, which would indicate we have a leak somewhere...and it was not spinning. So...no leak.
I called the City of ******* and they told me that they took the reading on 9/16, and that when they got our results back it threw up a red flag--so they did another reading the next day. The reading appeared to be accurate.
The woman I talked to said we could request a new meter be put in, but that newer meters read very accurately and that our water bill could be even higher as a result next month.
What do I do? Obviously we are going to pay our bill and cut our sprinkler system off, but could there be something that we're missing?
Re: BALLS. What do I do?
This EXACT thing happened to us when we moved into our new to us house. For one thing, do you know how many gallons $732 worth of water is? A whole hell of a lot - like, not even possible for you all to use that much water in one month - as an example, our pool is 55k gallons and it costs an extra $50 for us to fill it on top of our normal $40 water bill. We called the city and protested the bill and they agreed that something did not seem right - they did send another person out to look at our meter. They were really great in negotiating with us about how much we were to pay - the next month our bill was "normal" and we all chalked it up to a fluke incident and we were only liable to pay the "normal" amount of the huge ole bill.
Anyway, my point is: call someone else at the City and talk to them about this. The first person should have been more helpful - it would be impossible for you all to use $732 worth of water.
I have heard of people having a leak somewhere between the street and the house which led to a crazy bill but a normal meter reading. Is that possible?
She said that the water must pass through our meter and that if there was a leak from the street to the meter, it wouldn't make a difference on our bill.
Stripes--I asked if there was anything to do to negotiate this bill--considering there is NO WAY this is right.
She told me that we're responsible for the bill regardless, and that if we would like to have a new meter installed they can possibly do that. But that's all. WTF?
holy sh!t dude!!
I would throw a HUGE fit until they resolve it. Don't pay until it gets resolved.
I agree to call back and talk to someone else. I would ask for whoever answers the phone's supervisor. The "little people" can only do so much, KWIM?
This sucks! Sorry!
I agree with Tavia. Talk to the supervisor and don't pay until it gets resolved.
Do you have a leak in your sprinkler system? A really wet/green area?
That is absolutely ridiculous. And doesn't make any sense - who uses THAT much water in a month?! You'd have to have been watering the entire neighborhood every day for a bill like that.
I hope that protesting will get you somewhere - and that the issue gets resolved. That's stupidly nuts that the city expects you to cover that when it's obviously way more than what you normally pay.
As a last resort, if diplomacy and talking to the final supervisor doesn't work, I'd threaten to take it to the media. Your neighbors' bills sound ridiculous enough, but yours is crazy. It's like the City is making all their money off your neighborhood.
Also, it seems to me if these "new" meters are more accurate and most likely charging people even more money, wouldn't they be installing them EVERYWHERE? Something doesn't add up.