Submitted by Devastator1981 t3_z73ebo in washingtondc
Our apartment building (a bozzuto company) says that DCwater raised rates effective Oct 1, 2022. Ok fine but should the bills be doubling and in some cases tripling? I’m in a new apartment building in a 650 sq foot and with no change in usage bills fine from like $60 to like $150. Other neighbors noticing too.
Weird.
Our October bill was significantly more expensive, yes
Yes. Did nothing different last month compared to previous 15 months, it’s a sudden price hike.
You should have itemized bills from before and after. Look at them. Where is the difference coming from on the bill?
Do you have access to the bills themselves? Some of the per unit water and sewer fees did go up, but the net effect would be around a 5% bill increase, not something you'd notice.
If it's just this one month that's been super high and not several months in a row, my guess is that your building was being billed as estimated amount since it opened and then they took a real reading in November so months of underpayment is being tacked onto one bill.
Apartment or SFH/condo?
You absolutely have to check the actual readouts from the itemized bill. It should be available online. If you just check the toilets and for drips you can easily miss it. I had a toilet that would run only intermittently so if I didn't catch it at the exact right time I would miss it. It used a lot of extra water until I nailed it down but the usage was all spelled out there in my bill.
It'll have previous months' readouts too. And you can even compare it to the same time last year for an even better apples to apples usage.
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Log in or create an account on their web site: https://www.mydcwater.com/DCWSSP/Index.aspx --- you will get daily water consumption chart for the last 12 months at least.
Most large apartments like Buzzoto don't give itemized readouts. You don't pay DC Water directly. Buzzoto gets one big bill for the whole building and each resident pays a portion of it through a submetering contractor like conservice (their name is quite fitting based on my interactions with them!). How that bill is divided is up to them.
We lived in a building managed by Kettler for a while. Apparently there was some kind of mixup in estimated billing vs actual readings and the building owed DC Water a large backpay of money. That debt got evenly divided to current residents whether you lived there during the high usage period or not.
Well Bozzuto is super corrupt and dishonest (false marketing of their properties) so that tracks
This should be illegal. I've been a landlord in DC and owned condos I rented out, or family members lived in rentals . Mostly 20009 + 20007 zip codes.
The OWNER pays for the water. In the condos, we/they never got a water bill. It's part of the building expenses that are part of the condo fee, which again is paid by the OWNER, not the tenant.
If you are not being individually metered, I don't think dividing the bill is even fair /legal.
This is probably happening in recently built buildings where the developers own the property and squeeze every $$ out of their tenants.
You probably shouldn't be paying for water . See my comment below (long reply)
Mine went from around $50 to $100+ for a 1 bedroom in a large building. It's not based on personal usage, rather they take the total building usage and divide it amongst residents. Not sure what is going on but it's ridiculous.
Is it bullshit? Yes. Is it legal? Absolutely. You think these large corporations are brazenly doing something illegal like that?
I don't see how they can get away with charging for something that is not individually metered
Yeah it sucks, but I'm sure they hired lawyers to make sure it's legal. Anything for the sake of profits.
I’m in VA, also a Bozzuto property, and same happened to me for October. Was told by the property after I refused to pay it until further clarification from Conservice why the dramatic change that I was previously under billed and the increased amount was to bring my account up to the true amount. Next month “should” be a true reading, but I asked for an itemized list on both expenses.
Wait really? I looked at one of their places and was thinking about applying for an apartment, I’d love to hear any bad experiences, if you’d be happy to share?
Nice lobby/amenities. Super cheap building materials. Property managers don’t care about anything except collecting rent and extra fees. Cheers.
dcguy_01 t1_iy4gulf wrote
Did you shut off all your toilets overnight and check the tank?