Down the Drain, Part 2

Continued from Down the Drain...

As I squelched back from the now-shut-off hose bib through my sodden back yard, the principle question running through my head – well, two questions, actually – was simple:

How long had the damned thing been running?!?
And, just as important:
Who had left it running?

Look, I'm not a "yard work" person. I use that hose mainly for watering the plants in the back yard during the hot weather. I planted several small trees and shrubs back there this year, so I had been giving them a good drink whenever I remembered to, in hopes they would survive the hideous summer heat. But I don't think I had had to water anything since at least September. And since the September and November bills had been normal, clearly I hadn't left it running since then!

Besides, the last time I was out there was in November, when I took the weed whacker to my overgrown hayfield grass. (I told you, I'm not a yard work person. And no one can see the grass in the fenced back yard. So it gets a little out of hand.) Believe me, I'd have noticed the squelchiness if the hose had been running. So it wasn't me that left the hose on.

OK, the A/C service man came November 30 for my semi-annual heat pump maintenance. (That's the only reason I was out there scything down the hay cutting the grass in November, for heavens sake.) He usually uses the hose to flush crap out of the compressor enclosure. Could he have left it running? I didn't believe it. 1: He's very conscientious about cleaning up after himself. 2: The hose end was nowhere near the compressor, which is right beside the hose bib. And 3: Considering that 300 cubic feet of water had pumped out in only five days, I calculated the bill would have been for at least 2400 cubic feet, not the 1700 it was. So it wasn't the A/C man.

Who else had been in my back yard? No one that I knew of. No one that should have been there. I did recall noticing one day, some time well after the A/C man's visit, that the gate into my back yard was standing open. I remember at the time thinking vaguely that the A/C man must have left it open... but surely I had checked it after he left? Well, I closed and latched it and forgot about it.

And then I remembered the plumbing incident caused by the cable company at my next-door neighbor's, and suddenly it all fell into place.

I would lay odds that someone involved in this incident went into my back yard to get some water – maybe the cable guys wanted to wash the mud off their hands or equipment, or maybe the plumber or my neighbor needed a source of running water before the line was fixed – then left the hose running and the gate open. Since roughly the first of the year. Which, interestingly enough, would result in just the excess water usage I would expect based on that "300 cubic feet in 5 days" logged on the new meter.

I called the customer service rep back and told him what I had found. He still wanted me to replace the toilet flapper, since it really was a known problem (albeit a pretty minor one), and, oh, by the way, they don't normally make billing adjustments just because someone left a tap on, so I really needed to fix that leaky toilet. I got the message.

To be continued...