shifty wrote:
They were told to pay or loose their property and us remnants were told if they didn't pay we could pay ourselves or be evicted.
So only the loose remnants got evicted... is that so bad?
shifty wrote:
They were told to pay or loose their property and us remnants were told if they didn't pay we could pay ourselves or be evicted.
So only the loose remnants got evicted... is that so bad?
A few things catch my eye.
1. You only lived there 5 years, so you are only responsible for those.
2. Your water bill is $200 a month?? My God, do they lace it with cocaine? My water bill is $27 a month for a family of three and .5 acres of irigation. Sounds like they are sticking it too you ever month, not just this one time.
3. Please use the work "like" less. You sound like a 14 year old cheer leader. "A number of months ago (like maybe 20?), I received a water bill that was like $1500. My normal bill was like maybe $200."
4. I saved the best for last. What per unit rate did they use to determine the over usage? I am sure your water company has raised rates in the past 10 years. So if they say you have used more than anticipated for 10 years, and you owe xx,xxx gallons of overage are they charging you 2010 rates per 1k of gallons used or 2000 rates or an average of the two? More than likely they are using 2010 rates. If this is the case you can argue your fee be lessened by averaging the 2000 rates with the 2010 rates and more than likely cut your bill down $200.
This may, or may not, apply in your case. I was once billed about 5 times my normal water bill. The water company insisted the bill was legit. What I found out was that the water company wasn't actually metering my water use. They were metering the water use of the development I lived in.
The water company was billing me, and everyone else, based on some "city approved" calculation method. That method seemed to involve the size of my residential unit, the number of bedrooms, and the number of bathrooms. The amount of water used by the development determined the water bill for each unit. For some reason I never got an answer to, the development used an awful lot of water one month, for something no one was aware of. I never found out what happened, but I know I, and all of neighbors got "HOSED" that particular month.
The water company eventually reduced the bill to 2x. They seemed to have decided to take a bath on the huge amount of water used by the development that weird month.
I don't trust cities. I don't trust water companies. I don't trust any of municipality or utility scammers.
Country time wrote: For that kind of money, put in a well and a septic tank. No more water bills!
Ha! That may not work. At a home I owned, long ago, I was once away from home for over a month. I turned off my gas, and water meters. I unplugged everything that sucked power, even when off. I got bills for water, electricity an gas use, even though the usage was ZERO. The reason was that there were "approved" monthly connection fees for the privilege of having a utility meter installed on my property. On top of the "connection" fees, there were several other odd fees imposed by my city, county and the state that had to be paid regardless of how much of a utilities' product you used.
[quote]My gf has a whooty! wrote:
2. Your water bill is $200 a month?? My God, do they lace it with cocaine? My water bill is $27 a month for a family of three and .5 acres of irigation. Sounds like they are sticking it too you ever month, not just this one time.
Climate Zone affects water use. Landscape type affects water use. You $27 a month bill indicates you live either in an area with good rainfall and a large yard, maybe with a large turf area. Or, you live in a small arid area, with a small yard and little turf area.
3. Please use the work "like" less. You sound like a 14 year old cheer leader. "A number of months ago (like maybe 20?), I received a water bill that was like $1500. My normal bill was like maybe $200."
What did you do to your lawn that required 7x the water use? Please explain.
I remembered this from the summer. One lady got a $100,000 water bill.
No, you have no clue of what I was refering to. You know, the post that was deleted on the first page?
Did you consider that post before you replied? Please explain to everyone the post that was deleted.
The same Precious Roy from Unprofessional Foul?
I considered that you replied to a post I made, not to a post made by someone else.
Offer to pay them half of the ~$1200. I think you are screwed to an extent, but who else is going to pay for the excess water usage.
It was neither, so just STFU.
@ggttdd
You are much too uptight to be posting here tonight. Take a break and get some much needed rest. If you drink hard liquor, take a couple of shots, that will help settle your mind.
Yes. you like it a lot more when you talk out of your ass and nobody calls you on it.
1/10. You're not very interesting.
Well, at least you aren't talking out of your ass anymore.
How long until Mom tells you to turn the computer off.
You've not had to pay a full water bill for the entire time you've lived in your house. Pay it and forget about it. Any effort spent fighting will be a waste and will just prolong your rage. There's not going to be a class-action suit over this BECAUSE THERE ARE NO DAMAGES. You're not going to find an attorney (and I would be VERY surprised if Cornell's pro bono clinics work with people in Rojo's tax bracket) who will take this case because it is a complete waste of time and you cannot win. In a best case scenario, you're talking about only playing 5/6th of the monster bill. Just pay that other 1/6th and put this behind you.
I had a rental property that I was paying the water/sewer bill on while a tenant was living there. She always paid the bill but I finally forced her to switch it into her name. Unfortunately the same thing happened. The remote reader was not working and I was paying a bill that was much less than I should have been paying. The electric bill was included so I didn't notice there was no water usage being charged. When it was finally switched into tenants name, the city took an actual reading from the meter and I owed $700. I went back and looked at the bills and sure enough, I was only being charged a small minimum for all those months so I just paid it.
On a similar problem, I had a pipe burst (freeze)in a house and didn't find it until a couple weeks later. The next bill was about $600 for water AND SEWER. I explained that it was a burst pipe that the water went into the dirt crawl space under the house and not the sewer pipes and they did reduce the charge for the sewer portion so I only had to pay about $300.
As for estimating bills, it really makes me mad when the gas company estimates a bill when it switches from my name to a tenants. There is no way I can make the gas company do an actual reading if the tenant doesn't request it. This is a big problem in the winter if I keep an empty house at 45-50° and they estimate I kept it 70°. I am always the one that gets overcharged. My only option is to take my own reading everyday and call it in and hope they make a proper adjustment. They usually don't and I have to call a management number and complain which wastes a lot of time from my day.
THIS IS WHAT WE GOT WHEN WE DEREGULATED UTILITY COMPANIES WITH THE HOPE OF SAVING A FEW PENNIES EVERY MONTH. NOW THEY ARE BRIBING ALL THE SMALL CITIES TO GET ON THESE RIDICULOUS PLANS THAT IS SUPPOSED TO SAVE MONEY. MY TOWN GOT $30,000 TO DO IT. OF COURSE I OPTED OUT AS SOON AS I GOT THE FORM TO DO SO.
erichoffman wrote:
Offer to pay them half of the ~$1200. I think you are screwed to an extent, but who else is going to pay for the excess water usage.
Not my problem. For all I and they know it came from the previous owner of the house and not me.
SO my response would be no one pays it.
They in good faith gave me a bill and I in good faith paid it. To say it's wrong 10 years later is insane particularly when I didn't even own the house.
The fact of the matter is the city did just fine for 10 years without this 'extra water usage revenue' so they don't need it.
On a separate note, the bill wasn't for one month, it was 3 months or six months. The values and numbers are irrelevant. This is a principal thing.
One more unrelated thing.
The whole reason why this happened is because the city installed wireless meters in everyone's house so now a guy just drives down the block and picks up the reading. When the guy came to install the reader, I said to him, "Wow that's really cool. Why doesn't the gas company install one of those?"
He said something like, "Oh they have looked into it but it's not economical to do so. It's cheaper to have the guy go door to door. The city doesn't care about money so they are doing it now."
Classic.
It won't be long before all your utilities are plugged into an internet connection and they can be read and monitored from one location for each utility. This would get rid of the estimating that is often wrong and could be monitored if for instance a toilet was leaking and it would sent a warning within a couple days until waiting until the next bill arrived and it was very high. In my area, the water companies (both private and public) have been the most aggressive in installing wireless meters that can be read by driving by.
Rojo, if you got a new meter for the radio-read program, most likely your water bill will go up. As meters age, they start to "slip", meaning that some water can go by without being recorded. On the new meters, every freaking drop will register. I'm not saying that has anything to do with your billing issue, but just be aware that from now on your legitimate bills may be higher than previously.