$500 seems alot for a water bill. You would think the water company would’ve noticed a problem before it got that much. I believe they would set up a payment plan if she called them and explained some things. They certainly want the business. Try it.
Hooking up without a meter is just theft, not a good plan, at all. Don’t do it.
Physically yes (with knowledge, special tools, and work both inside and outside the house), but legally no, she can’t turn it on herself. I used to work as a utility operator, part of the job was going around town every 2 months disconnecting people who were chronically behind on their water bill and not paying. Being in a cold climate, we also had a policy of no disconnects during the coldest few months of the year.
Our department would almost always accept proposals where the disconnected person behind on their bill would pay something ($50 or so) up front, and commit to making regular payments after that. The bill may never actually get paid down and caught up on, but we wouldn’t disconnect until payments simply stopped for 1-2 billing cycles. So it would usually take between 2 and 4 months for someone to get disconnected. If they got on the phone and paid the $35 reconnect fee, plus a few bucks, I’d often be sent back out to reconnect the same house a couple hours later.
Some “repeat customers” of mine actually said with a chuckle that they decided it was time to finally pay the bill when they saw me walking up their lawn with a shovel. A few of them actually had the money all along, they just didn’t bother paying until they knew the town meant it.
FYI. Check your state’s disconnection policies. Policies, regulations and laws vary if water can/cannot be disconnected during winter months.
So how does the meter even go in there? Is there a threaded fitting or something? There’s just a shutoff valve that you can turn with pliers, right, and then about a 6 inch gap from one threaded fitting to another, right?
So if someone were going to die without water, hypothetically, could they just get the fittings they’d need from the hardware store and a small section of tubing of some sort to bridge the gap?
I mean it’s totally illegal to do that, I’m just wondering if this is the kind of task a moderately handy person could get done in a few hours or if this is actually something difficult.
Stealing electricity if the meter has been removed…now that’s dangerous. Probably could bridge the gaps with some heavy gauge wire inserted into the slots the meter uses, but those lines are energized and if you accidentally bridge a contact you’re gonna get an arc flash…
The OP says it’s been off “for a while now.” So it was probably turned off before winter began.
No, there is usually not an accessible shutoff before the meter. There is a valve buried out near the street and it takes a special tool called a “curb key” to turn it, and they turn that off before they shut off the meter.
That said, I’ve seen a situation where bad plumbing in a house caused an incredibly high bill because of a constant leak (or multiple leaks.)
This. Highly unlikely the meter was physically removed from the “box”.
The valve has a big “ear-lobe” with a hole. When in the OFF position, the water company simply puts a lock on it, preventing it from being turned back on. Nobody is out there yanking out sections of pipe for unpaid bills.
I’m in my “box” all the time, much to the chagrin of the SGID. But fuck em’. I need to know where I stand at the end of the month.
To people pointing out that $500 is a lot for water: there are generally a lot of hoops to jump through for essential utilities to disconnect service. It’s not like Netflix where if you don’t pay for a month they cut you off immediately. There are probably several months of letters and calls and warnings that you have to pay your bill or they will disconnect service, during which you can rack up plenty more charges.