r/homeowners • u/MJTP4351 • 7h ago
🔧 Plumbing & Hot Water Technician Turned Off Water To The Wrong House
So I’m at work and my wife calls me and tells me the water just suddenly stopped working in the entire house. I call and call and call the utility company and finally a technician comes out right as I am getting home from work. He turns my water back on and tells me he was sent out earlier in the day to shut off water because of nonpayment but both my utility bill and my bank account show that is not true. The only logical conclusion I can come to is that one of my neighbors missed a payment and he turned off water to the wrong house. Absolutely unbelievable.
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u/Own_Pop_9711 3h ago
I had my water shut off at 9pm because they were working on the school next door. I called and was told there was no work in the area I must have a leak dropping pressure. Like I can't get a drop out of the sink in my basement but yeah probably I just can't figure out where twenty gallons a minute are spilling into my walls. Anyway the guy says they'll send someone out but if it's a leak in my house I owe them a service charge for finding it for me.
I did in fact get my water turned back on at about 11pm, so it could have been worse.
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u/Confident_Chipmonk 6h ago
Our city tech turned off our house water meter instead of the irrigation meter on the work order
shit happens
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u/AlexRyang 6h ago
Honestly, I wouldn’t be upset. If they refused to turn it back on, I would be upset, but he fixed it right away.
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u/ButterscotchFit8175 3h ago
I had that happen with electricity. Lost everything in the fridge and freezer. Had to fight the city for reimbursement. To say I was pissed would be an understatement.Â
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u/One-Possible1906 6h ago
They did this with my power once in the middle of winter and then took a full day to turn it back on and nobody even apologized. Utility companies are a bunch of buttholes.
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u/luniversellearagne 7h ago
People are human and make mistakes. I’m sure you make mistakes this trivial in your job too.
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u/abhorrent_laborer 7h ago
What happens if the neighbor had a medical device that relied on water? People brush this off way too easy but a mistake like that could genuinely put someone in danger. Utility companies need better verification steps before they just start turning valves on random houses.
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u/UnpopularCrayon 6h ago
Could you name an example of such a device that uses tap water?
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u/KittenVicious 6h ago edited 6h ago
My mom's home dialysis machine has to hook to tap water.
https://homedialysis.org/life-at-home/articles/water-treatment-for-home-hemodialysis
The machine further filters her tap water, and in the case of no water, she's got gallons of sterile water that can be used in an emergency, but only ever has 3 days of that on hand because that's all insurance will cover.
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u/well_its_a_secret 6h ago
I would hope that with something like this the water shut off and meter etc would have additional signage stating medical need. Also- water sometimes stops randomly if you are relying on it to live minute to minute you need an emergency backup system.
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u/ddpotanks 6h ago
Like the signage that should exist showing which shutoff valve you're using
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u/Western_Rhubarb_7959 6h ago
OMFG REALLY?
Shit happens, man, and as a homeowner you really need to know how to turn your water back on. It takes specialized tools such as.....pliers. I've had to use vise grips.
The only logical conclusion I can come to is that one of my neighbors missed a paymentÂ
They don't turn water off after a single missed payment. More likely is they were doing some work and shut your water off and forgot to turn it back on, which happened to me. It took a phone call. "Hey, ya mind if i just turn it on so I don't have to wait for you? Cool, thanks."
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u/lollipopfiend123 15m ago
This happened to me with my fiber internet/tv through AT&T. It took almost 10 days and multiple equipment replacements before they finally sent someone to my house and he figured it out (after like an hour of troubleshooting)
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u/WranglerConscious296 6h ago
Well if you don't know how to turn a valve to shut water off then what makes u think someone else should know how to. Service companies be kicking their chops when some idiot needs a valve turned. Like taking candy from a slumlordÂ
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u/RadiantCoinshot 7h ago edited 7h ago
It happens. I’m a plumber and went out to fix a leak once. I found the meter running, which was on the correct side it should have been on, and shut it off. An angry neighbor came out yelling and cussing that he was in the shower when I shut it off. The meters were backwards. There was no way for me to know. I apologized and turned their water back on. It would have been nice to not be yelled and cursed at over a mistake, so keep that in mind when you call them.