New York – Some New York City homeowners are drowning.
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They claim their water bills are being inflated by newly installed automatic water meters.
Sahodra Samaroo lives alone, does her laundry once a week, drinks bottled water, uses her dishwasher only for storage, has no garage – only cement – and is afraid to put plants in her flower pots. That’s because after the city installed a new automated water meter, her bill shot up from roughly $62 a quarter to $1,400, reported CBS 2′s Marcia Kramer.
“Am I paying a mortgage here? Because that’s what it sounds like me: I’m paying a mortgage. $1,400 to pay for water, come on,” Samaroo said. “I got scared.”
She’s not alone. Gas station owner Carmie Elmore, Jr. also got a jaw-dropping increase from his normal $700 bill after the new meter was installed, Kramer reported.
“It eventually went up… to reach $36,000,” Elmore said.
Public Advocate Bill de Blasio says his office has received hundreds of complaints. De Blasio says the new technology has glitches and needs to be fixed.
“I gotta tell you, it makes me very angry to think about a hard-working homeowner, who’s doing everything right, playing by the rules, and the city shows up with a huge additional bill,” de Blasio said.
If you have complaints about your water bill, you can call the public advocate’s hotline at 212-699-7250.
Where is Herr Bloomberg, in Bermuda or London?
They tried the same thing in Vegas with electric meters, same story. People’s bills tripling in a month. Something’s a little fishy, I think if there ever was a reason for a class action lawsuit, this is it.
we’re in the same boat full of water – only 4 adult people in a house with skyrocketting water bills – looks like the city is running a “water park” off our backs
Maybe her old bills were wrong since the records show that the city water agency was only billing for about 2/3 of the water that was actually being delivered to end users (after accounting for leaks). The city needs billions of dollars to update the water and sewage system so she should happily pay the bills and realize its going to a good cause.
The number you are showing is incorrect for people to call with complaints. The correct number is 212 669-7250
My mother-in-law lives on Staten Island, she has been saying her water bills have tripled as well. On top of that, 3 weeks ago, a sewer pipe from under the city street adjacent to her home broke and flooded her entire furnished basement with city waste. There was over $20,000 in damages throughout the house but the city said it wasn’t their fault.
It’s quite easy to have a “silent” leak that’s wasting _huge_ amounts of water, and costing a hefty hit of cash. If a toilet doesn’t shut off completely, it might waste a half gallon per minute without anyone noticing the sound. That’s twenty thousand gallons/month, which would be about $250. (two hundred and fifty).
The City, if it actually cared about the taxpayers, _should_ have “capped”, so to speak, the maximum bill on new meters to, say, 125 percent of the old reading for the first month or three. That way people could see the huge difference, pay just a small amount more, and quickly find where the leaks are.