‘I would contact your local Legal Aid Society’: Woman cannot believe the rising costs of her water bill. What can she actually do about this landlord loophole?
Why is this water bill so high? This Indiana woman says her apartment complex hit her and her husband with a whammy of a utility bill.
Now she using TikTok to ask for help. Margarita (@mbevaesthetic_) generally uses her account for makeup videos and fashion tips, but, in a video posted four days ago, she reached out for advice on her water bill.
The video currently has 18,300 views and counting.
What did Margarita's water bill say?
"There’s no way we use that much water lmao. Has anyone else experienced this?" Margarita asks in the video's caption.
According to her, she and her husband received a $105 water bill after living in their new apartment for less than a month.
"I would really appreciate help from TikTok and lawyers or whoever is on here who has any idea on how we can handle this," she states in the video's opening.
The couple lives in Greenwood, Indiana. They recently moved into a new apartment.
They claim that their water bill at their former apartment was around $30. Margarita says they're now being charged around three to four times that amount—even though she states their water use has not significantly increased.
After receiving their first water bill, Margarita claims the couple contacted management.
"They said they would talk to the property manager and try to reach out to the water company so they could check the meter."
She also claims that management told her that the amount of her bill was "not normal."
How much was the second bill?
Margarita states that they never heard back. She says they then received an even steeper water bill for $145.
"So we called them again. This time the property manager picked up the phone," she claims. Margarita stated to her viewers that the manager had not been told about their initial complaint.
She also claims the manager told her that the bill was a normal amount for tenants to pay, contrary to what Margarita was told earlier, and that the amount was "metered" and "accurate."
"There is no way that we would be using $105 [of water]," she claims, "not even in a full month."
Margarita says she plans on contacting Conservice, her water utility management company, to find out why her water bill was so high.
Why was her water bill so high?
There are a variety of reasons that a water bill can run high.
According to Pods.com, "One of the main contributors to a high water bill" is leaks, especially around fixtures such as sinks, showers, and toilets.
"The average American family can waste 180 gallons of water per week from household leaks—the amount of water it takes to wash more than 300 loads of laundry. If that leak (or leaks) goes unaddressed, that’s almost 9,500 gallons of water per year.
If this were the case for Margarita's apartment, then the property management would likely be responsible, depending on the terms of their lease, to check for any leak that was not immediately detectable.
Another culprit could be the apartment's water meter. This is uncommon but can happen.
"To test your water meter, turn off your water. If you’re certain that water isn’t running, but your water meter is still moving, your meter may be inaccurate." according to Pods.
How was the water bill calculated?
There is another reason the bill was higher than what Margarita and her husband were previously paying. The way their bill is calculated by the complex
Most complexes use either "allocated" or "submetered" methods to calculate tenants' water usage. Water usage is measured by the city or municipality at a master meter on the site.
The complex then assigns renters their bills based on one of the two methods.
Per Texas' Public Utility website:
- Under submetered billing, the owner uses submeters at each dwelling unit to bill tenants for water and sewer services based on their actual water usage.
- Under allocated billing, the owner does not meter each dwelling unit but uses a formula to allocate water and sewer utility charges among the tenants.
Therefore, if the property manager did state that Margarita's usage was "metered" there is no way for viewers to know if they are referring to submeters or a master meter.
If their complex uses allocated billing, her high water bill could be the result of leaks in other units of the complex.
Her viewers weigh in
"I would contact your local legal aid society, as well as get on elocal.com or Facebook groups and see if you can reach out to a plumber to check your pipes. So sorry you’re going thru this," advised one user.
Another viewer wrote, "As a property manager please ask for a copy of the bill. Also make sure your water meter isn’t shared with any other units."
According to Margarita's response, "We did ask if it’s shared and they said no." This seems to indicate the complex uses submeters.
"I lived in an apartment and the meter is on the outside. They had four units. They divide it up and come to find out one unit had a leak in their apartment and never said nothing just saying," another viewer added.
Margarita responded, "That would make sense, we did bring that up, but they said that no one has a leak."
Marc Treitler General Counsel & President of Sustainability Solutions for Conservice confirmed via email that "we are using water submeters (located in each unit) to calculate the bills. Water and sewer charges are based on the amount of water each unit uses."
Treitler also stated "We use the rates from the local water and sewer providers to calculate her bills. In this case, the sewer provider, Greenwood Sanitation, has very high rates.
@mbevaesthetic Bc there’s no way we use that much water lmao. Has anyone else experienced this? #indiana #greenwoodindiana #apartment #apartmentliving #apartmentlivingproblems #lawyer #lawyersoftiktok #lawyertiktok #utilities #waterbill #fyp #help #johnsoncounty ♬ original sound - MARGARITA
The Daily Dot has reached out to City of Greenwood Sanitation via email for a statement. We also reached out to Margarita via email and TikTok messenger for further comment.
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The post ‘I would contact your local Legal Aid Society’: Woman cannot believe the rising costs of her water bill. What can she actually do about this landlord loophole? appeared first on The Daily Dot.