A man was stunned to discover his water meter had recorded him using enough water in 24 hours to fill 300 baths, leaving him with a bill of £7,000. Mick Foy couldn't believe it when he checked the gauge, which said he'd used more than a million litres in under a month.
He was first alerted to the issue when he got a call from South East Water, who told him it had spiked dramatically. The 64-year-old, who lives with his wife Debbie in a three-bedroom property in Ditton, Kent, said the company told him the usage was 'totally out of the ordinary'.
He said: 'We have had consistent bills for forever and the spike was just off the scale. 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."'
Meter in 'complete frenzy'
South East Water froze the bill and promised to send a plumber by August 4, but Mick couldn't wait, and headed up his drive to take a look at the meter. '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.'
Mick, whose son works for South East Water, took note of the reading and returned the next day to find it had recorded 54,000 litres of use at his property in just 24 hours. This is the equivalent of about 300 baths.
When South East Water's plumber failed to show on August 4, Mick says he grew 'frustrated'. 'There's nowhere that sort of water could come out of here in a private residence,' he said. 'I'm thinking, a plumber, are you for real? I'm telling you, there's no water anywhere.'
Bill frozen and MP contacted
Since then, the construction industry worker says he's recorded a meter change of 1,212,428 litres between July 24 and August 13 – enough to fill more than 6,700 baths. He said: '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.'
South East Water has rescheduled the plumber's visit and says a supervisor will oversee the work, but Mick says this isn't good enough. His MP Helen Grant has contacted South East Water to ask the firm to investigate his concerns and 'treat them with the urgency they deserve'. The water company said it would not comment on individual cases but would be very happy to escalate the customer's concerns internally 'as a matter of urgency'.
