Recently, the water company called me to let me know they had turned off my water at the meter because someone found a leak on my property. Later I received a water bill for almost $11,000. My normal bill is about $20-30.

I called the people at the water company thinking this was an error of epic proportions, but she reminded me about the leak and suggested that I could make payment arrangements. I explained to her that this would most likely take the rest of my life to pay off.

She suggested that I come to this meeting one night and that the board may agree to reduce the total amount due. But even if they were to agree to cut the bill in half, the remaining $5000 would be a hardship and take a long time to pay off for most anybody and I wasn’t looking forward to it at all.

I must admit that I am a little surprised that I was able to lose 3 million gallons of water (that’s right 3,000,000) without anyone noticing a problem sooner. I went to the property to assess the situation but the area had already dried up. Now I don’t know what 3 million gallons of water looks like but I have to think I would have had a lake where my property once was. I fully expected to see people launching boats and pulling skiers across what used to be my land.

I recognize that any water loss on my property is probably my responsibility and I want to do the right thing but all I am asking for is some help. It seems like the meter had to be broken or something. Plus we always have lots of air in the water lines. Couldn’t that affect the reading also? Please.

I was hoping there was some sort of loss report that this could have been added to as if a water main had broken and make all of this go away. As if.

In the end, they agreed to let me pay half in installments or $4,000 in cash. When the smoke cleared and the magical three million gallons dried up, it still seems like I got ripped off. The moral of the story, check on your property often and avoid getting hosed like I did.