A police officer just dropped off our water bill
A police officer just dropped off our water bill
We have lived here for the last 10 years. We always pay our water bill. Occasionally, we'll forget and receive a final notice for our water bill which we will promptly pay.
Tonight at 8 pm, a city police officer banged on our door with a blinding flashlight in hand. Made me verify my identification and then handed me my water bill (the due date being a week from now)
What the hell!
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I'm guessing this is in the U.S.? Where I live water is paid through yearly property taxes, along with garbage and other services from the city. Nobody around me has ever seen a "water bill". Businesses pay for the amount of water they use, but citizens all pay an annual flat rate through their taxes and can use as much water as they want, unless there are temporary restrictions.
Sorry to hear about your dystopia.
I'm sure the next person on that police officer's list is a billionaire that's doing tax evasion.
I'm in the US, and they repossessed my garbage can once because we couldn't pay.
Don't tell me they fucking lease you the bin
I wouldn't say you lease it. It's free with trash service, but they typically take it if you have out-standing dues so the trash folk won't take your trash until you pay the bill.
Yeah it comes free with the monthly fee you pay. It always fun when people make that argument. Totally free as long as you're paying the money already.
I had to pay an extra set up fee to get them to bring it back when I got a job and could start paying them again.
Yes. Pretty much. And you have to pay extra for two if you need more room. And you have to use their bin, they won't pick up just any old bin.
I don't live in the US, where I live specifically we have water at a flat rate like you but in other areas of the country there are water meters and people get water bills.
There is talk that we may have water meters in my city soon. I'm actually looking forward to it. People think it's a new bill they didn't have before but really it's a different way of paying the same bill. The bonus is that if you cut your water usage (or were already a low user) you can reduce your bill and pay less than you did before.
The other reason it's a good thing is that it's estimated a huge proportion of our water is lost to underground leaks on private property. Without water meters they have no way to track down what property has the leak, so property owners aren't even aware they are there.
That actually sounds like a great way to get people wasting a lot of water. Are you somewhere wet?
Yes, I do live in a place that has lots of fresh water, we do use a lot, and yes, if people were paying for the amount of water they use, they would waste less
However, do you know who is using even more water than citizens? Corporations. And they pay even less.
In one region alone, 18 businesses are using more than 75 000 litres *every day", representing billions of litres of water in a year, and combined, they paid $192 000 CAD in 2019.
Before making citizens pay for every drop of water they use, and accusing them of "wasting" water, I'd first turn my attention to corporations taking our resource for peanuts.
Water is a right, not a commodity.
I mean, it's both.
Water is so cheap though.
As in, if you use a lot of power you'll notice your bill is expensive.
When you use a lot of water it costs a few dollars.
In Australia tap water is (generally) a government service. We pay a set annual fee for the connection, and then a rate per kL. That rate is $2 AUD per kL for the first 150 kL.
Average full time wage is about $1,000 AUD per week after taxes.
Incidentally our water meter is broken and only records a tiny portion of our actual water usage, but our family of 4 probably uses 500L a day, 15kL a month.
If we were to double our usage that's $30 a month so it's just not really a noticable cost.
Hmm, looks like it's 5CAD/m3 here, and another 2CAD for sewerage. There's a hint on the bill that it might get higher if you're a big consumer, but I don't actually know. (1kL = 1m3)
You're right, it's not huge, but if you own a swimming pool I imagine it can still add up. My friend who's a seasoned municipal worker says it's way lower than what it should be, too, although I can't confirm that's a numerically informed position.
The provisioning of free landfilling and free roads and parking definitely has had unfortunate side-effects, at least.
Oh, yeah. Filling a pool would get pricey. We have a sliding scale so pool-havers would pay more to fill a pool.
I think there's an argument to be made to increase the cost just to reduce consumption - the same for power and gas.
I'm not a climate scientist but the predictions for water scarcity in the future are pretty scary. I think that might be more for agricultural uses than drinking water specifically, but still.
It's like that pretty much in every US city.
I grew up in a rural area where we don't have water bills because our homes have individual wells and septic tanks
Water bills were a weird thing to adjust to when I first moved to the city
Personally, I'd rather pay for my usage. I've lived in an apartment complex where they didn't have a meter for every apattment and let me tell you, the second people around here don't directly pay for their own usage it seems like they just waste water on purpose. I couldn't figure out how these people used up that much water based on my previous typical monthly usage.
I wish people weren't that way.
What's wrong with them using said water? Also you have only one data point for people in the complexes usage which may not be a good indicator.
If they are using more than they really need, there's plenty wrong with that. Water may be recyclable but there's still only so much to go around at once. And I mean in general.
I think it's a pretty good indicator. Because that's how a lot of people treat things when they go from having to pay for there usage to getting it free. Think of how many people waste food at buffets cause they paid a flat rate to get in. There's no incentive to be conservative.
No matter how long they run that faucet they will never be a top user, because their competitors in this race is literally all commercial water companies and they barely even use their water comparatively. All it takes to triple the water usage is 2 more people than one.
This is just hating on people for living slightly differently than you.