Plymouth woman says she unknowingly wracked up $6,000 in water bills
PLYMOUTH, WASHINGTON COUNTY, N.C. (WITN) — What was supposed to be a new home quickly turned into a disaster for Plymouth resident Delia Leary.
“When I first moved in, I noticed a little blue object in the closet,” Leary says, an object that turned out to be a well.
What Leary didn’t know was that it would cost her thousands of dollars.
“The water department kept coming out saying,’ You got a leak, you got a leak, you got a leak,” Leary told WITN. “I said, nothing is running, nothing is running.”
According to the county, a connection failure in Leary’s plumbing between the public water system and the private well developed into a larger leak that wracked up a bill of over $6,000 within only a few short months.
“We understand that this is an extremely large bill, and we take it very seriously,” Washington County Manager Curtis Potter says. “We are looking at everything we can possibly do under the parameters of the ordinance we have to follow.”
Leary says she had no idea the well was connected to her water system or that any water was being used. “Nobody explained to me about the well. I didn’t know what it was. I’m not used to a well in the closet. I’m used to a well in the yard.”
She says several workers from the water department came to her home, as well as plumbers, to try and decipher the problem.
By the time they figured it out, it was too late. She already had the bill.
“It’s a lot. It not only stresses me out, it stresses my kids out. They’re not knowing whether or not we’ll have water Monday because the bill is due and that’s a lot of money to come up with.”
The county was able to authorize a 50 percent abatement, reducing the payment to just over $3,700, and place Leary on a payment plan, but Potter says that’s all they’re legally able to do.
As a single mother, Leary says the $1,900 due next week might be too much to pay.
Although this kind of well is uncommon, according to Potter, he advises that there are ways to prevent this situation in the future, like insurance and personal meters.
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