Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Denver Water (Bill) Spikes
Denver Water bills going from $40 to $900 and no one can find out why? Apparently hundreds of rate payers are experiencing the dreaded "water spike".
From The Glendale Cherry Creek Chronicle:
"Leading the fight to find answers is real estate broker Sonja Leonard of Leonard Leonard & Associates who has been in business for 28 years. After receiving water bills for $40 on a property located at 1111 E. 3rd Avenue, Leonard received a bill for just over $1,000 in February 2008 and another bill for just over $900 in September 2008. Outraged at the “spike” in her water bill, Leonard said she called Denver Water to find out what was going on.
“I’ve received these spikes in water bills in 2007 and 2008 and every time I call Denver Water they either don’t call me back or tell me that they checked the water meter and report that it’s fine,” said Leonard. “It’s so frustrating because none of this makes any sense. The high water spikes come out of the blue and no one knows why."
Wouldn't a prudent provider have a computer program to flag this kind of increase, and then go to the address and get to the bottom of it, rather than requiring the user to prove that they don't have leaks and pay if they can't?
I was in Florida for 11 days in December and in Antarctica for the month of February. However, when I came back to town, my 12/15/2008 to 2/18/2009 bill was for 27,000 gallons. I have never used over 6,000 in that period before. At first Denver Water said it was a leak, but then they backed off of that and said that it was my ERT reading incorrectly. They said I had used that amount over the past several months. I personally think they took the average usage of 9,000 gallons and multiplied it times the three periods they felt my water usage was low and came up with the 27,000 gallons. Before the 27,000 gallon charge my water usage was normal, 55,000 gallons in 2007 and 55,000 gallons in 2008. The additional 27,000 gallons charge in the last period was 49% of my normal yearly usage. Also curious was the fact that it happen during the period that the wastewater sewer charges are set for the year. I have always been at the lowest rate, last year $11.70, that went up to $48.75!!! I have never, even in the middle of summer, used 27,000 gallon of water, I have a xeric yard, and I live alone. There is definitely something amiss here and I have not been able to get any reasonable response from Denver Water either. I also have been told they will investigate the problem and call me back. So far, I have not heard back from them when I was told they would call.
ReplyDeleteFor a house with two residents, we just received a two month bill for $890+ dollars, claiming a consumption of 117,000 gallons of water.
ReplyDeleteCurrently looking into this, will update when I know what's going on.