Mick Foy, a 64-year-old construction worker from Ditton, Kent, received a £7,000 water bill after his meter recorded usage of more than a million litres in under a month. The meter showed he had used enough water in 24 hours to fill 300 baths.
Meter Spinning 'Like There's No Tomorrow'
Foy, who lives with his wife Debbie in a three-bedroom property, checked his meter after receiving a call from South East Water in July. The company told him the usage was “totally out of the ordinary”.
“We have had consistent bills for forever and the spike was just off the scale,” Foy said. “I asked the lady on the switchboard when it started, and she said it could be any time in the six months leading up to July. I thought, 'well, that’s not very helpful.'”
South East Water froze the bill and promised to send a plumber by August 4. Unable to wait, Foy examined the meter himself. “It was spinning around like there’s no tomorrow. It was just going into a complete frenzy,” he said. “It’s just been in complete freefall.”
54,000 Litres in One Day
Foy noted the meter reading and returned 24 hours later to find it had recorded 54,000 litres — about 300 baths. When the plumber failed to appear on August 4, Foy grew frustrated. “There’s nowhere that sort of water could come out of here in a private residence. I’m thinking, a plumber, are you for real? I’m telling you, there’s no water anywhere,” he said.
Between July 24 and August 13, Foy recorded a meter change of 1,212,428 litres — enough to fill more than 6,700 baths. “It didn’t really faze me as much as it did my wife. She lost a bit of sleep the first night, but you can’t do anything about it. You’ve got to wait for the powers that be. But it does faze you a little bit,” he said.
MP Steps In After Delays
South East Water rescheduled the plumber’s visit for August 20, with a supervisor overseeing the work, but Foy said this was not good enough. His MP, Helen Grant, contacted South East Water to ask the firm to investigate the concerns and “treat them with the urgency they deserve”.
The water company said it could not comment on individual cases but would be “very happy to escalate the customer's concerns internally as a matter of urgency”.
