The Joys of Home Ownership: Water Meters

When we moved into our house, I swore that after over a year of house-hunting, I would never ever complain about it.  And for the most part, I haven't, but sometimes it does have its challenges.

First off, the water meter.  I remember when I was a kid, sometimes a friendly man would knock on our door to read the meter.  This seemed to happen with regularity in the "old days".  Now, however, it seems that since moving in, we have regularly received mail telling us to read our OWN meter.  I called several times to explain that I didn't know where the meter is, only to have someone explain that it's SO easy to find.  So I searched and searched, with no luck.  Finally in November, I phoned and after waiting on hold for half an hour, explained that I absolutely needed to have a meter reader come by.  Isn't that what we pay taxes for?  When he finally came a week or so later, what was the result?
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He couldn't find the meter! 

Actually, after combing through the furnace room and glancing over most of our basement, we discovered that it's at about shin-level in our laundry room.  The only problem is that because of renovations by the previous owner, the meter is accessible from a square opening in the wall that is considerably lower than the meter.  The only way to read it is to use a camera and contort your arm so that you can take a photo of the meter from above.  Except you need to have the flash on, since it's so dark inside the wall.

I thought this chapter was closed, since I mailed in the little slip with the meter reading on it.  Alas, no.  Yesterday we received another letter, saying that our reading was out of date.  Did the slip get lost in the mail?  I tried in vain to figure out how to get a photo of the reading, then I turned to Plan B)  Call the utilities company and complain about how they lost our slip.  After sitting on hold for over 10 minutes, all the while googling photos of water meters, I decided to have another go at it.  This time I  was successful and decided to enter the reading online instead of chancing the postal system again.  And after 17 minutes on hold, I never did speak to a customer service agent.  Sigh... The end result is good though, as we are way under their estimate and will probably have a few months free.  I took a long hot shower to celebrate.  :-)

These are the things no one tells you about when you buy a house!  Good thing it's so worth it.

PS  I'm off to a winter retreat with our church youth group this weekend, which will likely involve lots of fun, but not lots of sleeping.  Please pray for us!