Day 180: AQUA is the Devil

Ok, so much for not complaining...this is gonna be a rant...so send the kids to bed.

The fucking water company has had our street torn up and our main rerouted thru an anaconda's nest of above-ground hoses for two months. First, one of the hoses breaks and spills hundreds of gallons of water into the street. Then we find out our house is equipped with some sort of one-way moisture valve that prevents the outbound pipe from being used as the inbound pipe, so we had no water at all for a day.

And today I get a water bill for $192.  When I call customer service, I'm told that our meter had been "stuck" and that they couldn't get a "clean read" on it SINCE DECEMBER. They have some kind of drive-by system, similar to a radar gun, that reads each meter as the AQUA truck drives thru the neighborhood. So now, they claim, they finally got a "clean read" and this is what we owe. Only problem is that I've been paying AQUA bills (usually $35 a month) every month. When I asked about that, I was told that when a "clean read" is not available, the customer is charged a flat minimum rate. The $192 represents 6 months of water use ABOVE the $35 monthly minimum, i.e., another $35 a month for 6 months. To top it off, I was told it is MY responsibility to check the meter and to see that the usage amount on my bill does not read zero.

Fuckers.

Hey AQUA, here's an idea...if you can't get a "clean read" on a customer's meter for more than two consecutive months, CALL THE CUSTOMER or send someone out to do a MANUAL METER READING.

I'm tempted to dig my own well.

Fuckers.

Comments

[Jo-Ann]

PGW once dug up my street and turned off the gas because THEY forgot to send me a bill for over 6 months.

Gotta love those utilities.

[Charlie]

Jo -
PGW once sent my bill to the WRONG ADDRESS for 4 months. Never found out how the bill had gotten rerouted. Idiots.