Carol Stapleton says his typical water bill has always been around $20-$30 a month. In December that bill jumped to $71, so Stapleton knew there was a problem. He started checking under his mobile home and found a couple of leaks. Stapleton repaired the leaks and thought things would return to normal. Boy was he shocked when the January bill came in at more than $240.
Stapleton began checking again, starting at his meter. When he lifted the cover, he couldn't read the meter. The glass was completely fogged and faded on the inside, so it couldn't be wiped off. Then he began looking around his home again and found a big leak, so he shut the water off immediately. he also called BexarMet. They sent a crew out, who changed his meter and placed a flow monitoring device on his meter so they could tell when Stapleton was using the most water. BexarMet also scheduled a water audit of Stapleton's home, and most importantly after he showed receipts for the repairs he had already made, BexarMet adjusted Stapleton's water bill to just over $70.
Mike Lopez, the spokesman for BexarMet says the hard freeze we had a couple of weeks ago really created problems for a lot of customers, and there were extenuating circumstances in Stapleton's case. Lopez says the utility wanted to work with him to first correct the issue, and secondly make the bill less burdensome for the elderly retiree. Lopez also says if you have an issue with your water bill, call the utility right away and in most cases they work with their customers to find leaks and resolve issues, but those issues are handled on a case by case basis..
