More in the great water saga -- wonderful news!

Poststructural Pub
1

UPDATE: The water office came through for us! See here:

http://chiffboard.mati.ca/viewtopic.php?p=668874#668874

On Monday, my plumber called me to do a followup check on the work he’d done. I was able to assure him that everything was working perfectly as far as I could tell (I’ve gone down a couple of times to check the meter since the new line was installed). He then reminded me that most utilities will knock a bit off the bill…sometimes as much as 50%…if you show them an invoice from a licensed contractor to prove the problem has been taken care of.

So of course I called the billing department. I left a message on Monday and, having not heard back, called today and spoke to a live person. The upshot is, no…they won’t take anything off the bill, and are “standing behind their meter reading.” I told him that I didn’t dispute the meter reading, but there was no way I could have known about the leak until I got that astronomically high bill. We never experienced any lack in water pressure, and no water ever came to the surface…in fact, neither the plumber nor the subterranean water experts he brought in to consult was able to FIND the leak, which is why we took the step of simply replacing the entire line. He responded by saying that our water usage had gone up steadily in the years since we’ve lived here, and that should have been a clue that something was wrong.

Huh?

I can’t speak to the usage, but I know that, while my water BILL has risen slowly but steadily since we moved here in June of 1999 (just as everything else has, from the price of electricity to the price of mailing a letter) there has NEVER been an astronomical jump like this. It’s normal for the water bill to fluctuate considerably…both because they only read our meter twice a year and because they regularly tack assessments for water system and roads improvements on to the water bill…but the over-all price we’ve paid for water service has not risen any more sharply or suddenly than anything else in our lives. Prior to this bill, the highest bill I’ve ever received was for $297, and that had the roads assessment tacked on to it! There’s been nothing to indicate to me that we were losing or overusing water…until this past month, when we got that bill for $707. And as soon as we got that bill, and realized we had a problem, we took steps to find out what the problem was and eliminate it. Heck, we even lived for around a week without turning the water on at the meter at all, other than for a brief period to shower in the morning and a second brief period to do laundry and dishes in the evening.

I’m just very frustrated and angry now. After all we’ve been through with this in the past couple of weeks, it cuts pretty deeply to know that the billing department in our overtly Christian community won’t go as far as a public utility. It’s not like we neglected an obvious problem. You’d think they could at least meet us half way.

I’ll pay it (I don’t see that I have any choice in the matter) but it rankles, and it’s a huge chunk of our budget. To make matters worse, the next bill will probably be inordinately high as well, because they time it took to diagnose the problem and discover what we needed to do to mitigate the damages crossed into another billing period.

Vent over. Now back to your regularly scheduled programming, already in progress.

Redwolf

2

I don’t think I would pay it. I would fight it. Never accept the verdict from the first tier you encounter in any bureaucracy. Demand a hearing and just irritate the hell out of 'em…phone calls, letters with cc’s to the local paper, emails, just make a loud, messy stink-up. Don’t be silenced by one idiot at the end of a telephone.

3

Contact one of your local consumer advocate reporters, either print or TV, and advise them of your problem. You may not be able to get any money back, but you just might get the satisfaction of spreading a bit of egg on the christian water company’s face.

4

Ooohhh, sorry to hear about that. Chalk that up to the joys of home ownership. I’ve been down similar paths over the years. You just can’t anticipate every “gotcha” that’s lurking around the corner. Well, it’s all water under the bridge now. whoops…sorry!

5

The part that bothers me is when he says your usage has gone steadily up since you lived there and you should have known something was wrong. Your bill has gone up some due to rising rates. Maybe your usage has gone up some, but I’d like to see by just how much he is talking about. It doesn’t seem like it could be enough to indicate a leak—as you point out, only a big jump would do that. Your daughter is getting older, she takes more showers, etc. If he is basing their refusal to help out with the bill on that, I’d go to the office and ask to see the records. I would want to see by just how much the usage had been increasing. Obviously his job is to get rid of people like you. I might not take them to court or anything because that would be a lot of trouble, but I would want to see the usage figures he is basing his opinion on----both sides should be able to see those figures. I think he should print them up so you can go home and study them.

6

And… shouldn’t that be more of a clue to them that something might be wrong?? They are the ones who know waht average usage etc is, and they are the ones that didn’t bother to note that there might be a problem when they should have, if that is their argument - that it was ‘visible’… I’m with Dale… make a stink before you pay it.

7

The Argument that you can tell from your bill that the usage has increased, apart from suddenly and dramatically, is utterly specious.
As a programmer who has been tasked with writing a program to monitor Utility Usage via billing, from the customer end, I can tell you that utility bills of all kinds are deliberately intended to confuse. And if they are NOT deliberately so, then they might as well be. (Stupid program never worked. Never could work.) Unless your utility bills are radically different from any I have seen - it is possible - they are merely blowing smoke, and the argument would not stand up in a court of law.
As Weekenders says, this is just a first skirmish. Don’t let yourself be beaten down by this poltroon.

8

for a $400 difference (your highest bill to date before this), you can bet I’d be fighting this!

First step is to put your past bills into Excel of something and graphically represent them. If you can’t get your hands on the past amounts, that may mean a visit to the water works. Our bill is broken down into sewer vs. water (and the sewer is always the water amount times 3), hopefully yours are, too, so you can subtract those extra things first.

After that, then I’d blanket email, mail, copy, whatever, anyone and everyone with the details.

9

Dale/Lance

Annie…you’re not sharing :smiley:

10

The nice thing is I have all my ledgers dating back to the year we moved here. Whenever I write a check for the water bill, I flag it “Mount Hermon H2O.” I actually went through all of them this morning, after speaking to the guy in the billing department. That’s why I know for certain that, while it has steadily increased, there’s never been a radical jump in my average bill until now (I’m saying ‘average’ because we typically have two high and two relatively low bills each year…the high ones happen after the biannual meter readings, and are usually in the $225 - $250 range. The highest “high” bill I’ve had was $297, which is a small enough difference that it didn’t raise any red flags. The low ones range between $45 and $70. Eight years ago, when we moved here, our bills ranged between $120 - $170 (high bills) and between $24 and $30 (low bills). So yeah…things have gone up, but aside from the built-in and expected radical jumps between high and low each year, there’s been no change extreme enough to indicate a problem until now.

It’s also interesting that, when I initially called the billing department about the $707 bill, the guy said “something must be wrong, because that’s nearly triple your usual usage.” Wish I had that on tape!

IB, you’re right about the bills being confusing. When we got this big one, I tried hard to figure out exactly how much water we’d used, and couldn’t make heads nor tails of it. It’s done by “tiers” that increase in price depending on how many gallons it takes to make up a particular tier. My husband the programmer figured out that we’d have to be using nearly 800 gallons a day to make that figure, but even he’s not sure he’s doing the figuring correctly.

Redwolf

11

fuss at 'em for the meter readings then :smiley:

12

the Dale of that reference is the Undisputed, another (also undisputed… most of the time :slight_smile: ) Dale is my hubby, and Lance was my eldest daughter’s boyfriend, now deceased. Just to avoid confusion.

13

Well, I’m still alive, but confused. Oh vell… :boggle:

14

I don’t see a undisputed Dale post in this thread :confused:

I saw where Weekenders said “I don’t think I would pay it.”

I thought that you ment Lance instead of Dale. :smiley:

15

YES!


mutters about Hydro Electric being a shower of c*s


Don’t pay it until you’ve gone as high up as possible. I had an extraordinarily large bill a while ago which turned out to be because an engineer had swapped out the wrong meter. I had all the serial numbers to prove this but kept being told that it wasn’t possible, result of which was they kept sending me large bills which I refused to pay. Eventually I got speaking to a high level manager, who, after a series of phone calls, started to believe that I was actually telling the truth. In the end instead of a bill for £400 I paid a bill for £26 (the problem had gone unnoticed for a couple of quarters).

Don’t trust their billing systems and check everything. It’s your money and you should be sure of what you’re paying for.

16

Oh and whenever you’re speaking to customer service people on the phone always be very polite, respectful but firm. Never raise your voice or insult them, that way does not lead to managerial access.

Only once you have reached the higher levels may your patience fray, although I would still advice politeness and a level head. Always be willing to follow through a threat to change provider, otherwise it has no weight.

17

Well, they just called me back. They’re not going to do anything about the bill. The most they offered was to send me a letter detailing how much water we’ve used over the past year, so we can be comfortable that they’re justified in shafting us. Oh yeah..and they won’t charge me a late fee for this one, since it was in dispute. Wow. I’m underwhelmed.

I never thought I’d say this, because I love this place, but right now I wish I lived anywhere but Mount Hermon.

I think I’m just going to go off and have a good cry now.

Redwolf

18

We don’t really have all those levels here. This is a small private utility…it serves Mount Hermon Christian Conference Center and the private homes immediately around it, and is part of the Mount Hermon Association. There’s the guy I spoke to and his boss…that’s it. We have no option to choose another provider, and they know it…that’s another thing that’s frustrating. The wells belong to Mount Hermon, as do the meters and the pipes leading from the wells to the meters. There’s no option to switch to a different water company in Felton or Santa Cruz, because Mount Hermon is technically private property.

Redwolf

19

Maybe you can use their letter as evidence against them in a small claims court or something?

Have you talked to someone at the Mount Hermon Association about it?

Or we could start a Chiffy Fundraiser to raise the difference between your usual bill and the shafting one. I’d be happy to donate!

20

Maybe you should look into digging a well, and just be done with them completely.

Mark