Many months ago, I received a notice both online and in the mail from the SD County Utilities Deptartment indicating that irregular water usage was detected and that I would not receive a bill until they conducted research and resolved the matter. At the time, I recalled that there was a leak at an outside spigot that gushed water for about 10 minutes before it was fixed. I thought nothing of it and carried on with my daily, weekly, and monthly activities.
I never gave it a second thought until I had 3 separate clients reach out to me to let me know that they had not received a bill in months and one of them, even a year. They had received similar notices of “irregular water usage” and ceased being billed. This came up in conversation as they were planning to sell their homes and wanted some guidance about how to handle this in the event we close escrow and still couldn’t get the water bill issue resolved (and paid for).
One of my clients in Del Cerro attempted on three different occasions to phone the water department with no luck. She was placed on hold for over an hour one day. She finally got someone on the next attempt but they could not help her figure out how to get her bill. She even went so far as to go to the physical office, only to be turned away and told that they couldn’t help her and that she’d have to wait for them to contact her. She ultimately called her City Council Representative’s office for some assistance. I decided to call mine as well as I was still dealing with my missing bill as well as my clients’ in the same district as my property. I was actually surprised at the swiftness with which I received a response and assistance from them. I received a phone call from the Public Utilities office directly and that person was able to assist me on my own property. I also provided the contact information for my other clients having issues and they reached out to them immediately following. Although we all received HUGE bills to pay off, we were all able to get this problem resolved in a matter of minutes by getting our locally elected representatives involved.
In one of the cases above, my client had turned the water off for a month as she and her family travelled. This triggered the water company to issue this notice and stop billing. In another client’s case, they had an undetected water leak about a year prior that had been resolved, however the water department put the research and resolution on the back burner and never followed up with them either. If you have experienced any issues with your water usage, be on the lookout for this notice. And if you don’t want to be hit with an exorbitant bill of accumulated usage, contact your local council person to get you in contact with someone who can actually help you at the utilities department.
Some contact information to use in this case is below:
If you have not receive your water bill or to report a misread, go to the link below to upload and image of your water meter: https://www.sandiego.gov/public-utilities/customer-service/billing/water-meter-read
You can also try the department below: Customer Services Representative, Public Utilities Department 619.515.3500, [email protected]