this post was submitted on 28 Dec 2025
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Just to add an anecdotal example, I used to live in a condo complex where each building contained 10 units which all shared one master meter. Instead of each unit having it's own water meter all 10 units would be billed as one. Functionally it didn't matter because the water bill for all the buildings was paid by the HOA through our HOA dues which were fixed at $185 per month.
Shortly before I moved the HOA was having significant issues with the water bill because while most buildings had a monthly bill of ~$600 (or $60 average per unit) two buildings had a monthly water bill of ~$2500 per month (or $250 average per unit). The HOA had had the city come out twice to look for exterior leaks and had paid three different plumbers to check for internal leaks, but either they couldn't find one or simply there wasn't one.
If we assume that there was no leak, and the average per unit water usage should be $60, and only one unit was spiking the water usage that would mean one unit was using $1960 per month of water.
I later heard from people I knew there that the HOA had found one unit was being rented to a family with 10 people in a 2 bedroom who was also running an illegal restaurant from the unit (as in people were coming up to the front window and buying styrofoam trays of food to go).
I don't hate the hustle or people trying to get by, but I've absolutely have seen situations where people getting something for free means they over use it.
They weren't over using it because it was free, though, that's the thing. They were using it for a legitimate purpose: feeding others and supporting themselves financially. They didn't choose how the complex handled billing for water, and people like this will usually happily pay their fair share given the opportunity. We as a society act like people cramming their ten person family into a two bedroom apartment are the ones taking advantage of the system when it's 1000% the other way around.
That's speculation at best. People cramming 10 people into a 2 person home isn't taking advantage of a system, but using 32x more water than the average user is. They were running this business out of their home without required health and safety inspections, it was in violation of the HOA rules, and almost certainly in violation of the terms of their lease. After I left, the HOA put in sub-metering so each unit did have to pay their own water bill.
Your argument is that most people are willing to do things the right way if they have the opportunity, but clearly they couldn't have made this happen legitimately or else they would have rented a business location or started a food truck. It's not excusable to do things the wrong way and benefit because if you had done it the right way you wouldn't have benefited.
It's like if I said, "I only ran this profitable illegal business because if I had done it legally it wouldn't be profitable. Yeah, I lack the opportunities in life (like a rich family) to have done this legitimately so that totally excuses me taking advantage of my neighbors."
I'm all for saying fuck corporations, but this is just hurting your direct neighbors and breaking health and safety laws that are meant to keep people safe.
I mean that's what you're doing, too. That's part of having a conversation. There are statistics that back my speculation, but at the end of the day we're discussing strangers.
That being said, people making the best of their situation are never taking advantage of a system, especially a system designed specifically to keep them down. You think they're crammed into that condo, five to a bedroom, by choice? The 32x water usage is nothing compared to what corporations take from us every second of every minute of every day when they're actually taking advantage of the system. This family is, again, feeding people and simply trying to survive. The system wants you to condemn the family of immigrants rather than the single billionaires taking exponentially more from each of us and doing exponentially more damage. And that's not speculation, that's how it is. And they should have had individual meters in the first place, so let's not act like that's the consequence of some grave injustice, either. Would have prevented the whole issue in the first place.
Except I'm not speculating, this isn't a statistic or something that has room for negotiation. I'm telling you a series of events which occurred and had real world impacts on immediate neighbors. You're glossing over most of my argument because on a large scale statistics point to an out come that supports your belief rather than the event that happened to me.
You then are dismissing microscale misuse because corporations do worse as if that makes it ok? If your poor neighbor steals your car to survive, but I tell you that big corporations have stolen more from you that doesn't change the fact that your neighbor stole your car!
Also, I never said they were immigrants, that was your assumption and they weren't. Also, why does their immigration status matter in this argument?
Also, why should they have individual meters in the first place when the existing system had worked for over a decade without issue and was functionally cheaper. This is an HOA, these units were owned primarily by single owners with a handful of rentals. Adding individual meters meant the homeowners had to pay to have them put into their own homes, they had to then pay a third party sub-metering service, and then they had to pay the actual bill itself.
All in all the HOA gave the homeowners the option to either raise everyone's HOA dues by 20%, ban renting in the complex, or install sub-metering and the community decided to go with sub-metering.
Let me put it into perspective, these two abnormal building bills accounted for $47,000 a year in extra water charges or about 20% of the HOA's annual budget (and that's just the excess, not the rest of the bill).
But yeah, it's ok to fuck over your neighbors because you're struggling and corporations are worse.
And you're sure that the HOA isn't just using it as an excuse to get extra cash? It's an EU law to have individual metering, and it should in reality save everyone money (after the initial install costs). Unless you're consuming more than anyone else, IDM should only save you money and is better for the environment by giving more incentive to be efficient.
I assume you already have electricity individually metered, right? Why should water be any different, if it's so expensive? I can't think of any reason why your bill would now be significantly more expensive, unless you yourself are a high-user, or your HOA is ripping you off.
In a lot of cities it is a rule, but only at a municipal level. Some states might have rules, but it's by no means universal. At the time the average water bill for a family for 3 was $80 per month. It's entirely possible that your water bill could on an individual level be lower, but it's nearly negligible, especially after you add the third party sub-metering service that runs that program.
In all reality $185 a month was a good rate because it included all outdoor maintenance (grounds, swimming pool, parking lot, roofs, siding, etc) and when you take into account that $60-80 of it was likely for water services it made sense. In general when you share costs across a group the overall cost is lower then when handled individually.
Also, in most US municipalities the bulk of your bill will be fixed rate costs such as metering and availability fees. Depending on your municipality it could be anywhere from 25-75% of your actual bill. I just went and looked up this city's current rate and for 0-4 CCF (Centi Cubic Feet, 748 gallons, or 2300 liters) it's $2.78 per CCF, for 5-10 CCF it's $9.26, and for >10 CCF it's $12.34. The fixed rate for a 2 inch meter is $12 and the service charge for a 2 inch line is $40. So the city sets a master meter which generates these rates, if you then add a private sub-metering service you then have to install meters and now you get 10 extra service fees and 10 extra meter fees per building. Cutting out the middle man cuts down costs.
In my discussion earlier I was only talking about the usage fees because the fixed prices are fixed and relatively small in comparison to the elevated usage fees. Back calculating from this math the average 10 unit building would have been using ~53 CCF per month but this building was using 207 CCF. If we then know how much the average building is using (53 CCF/10 units) then we can deduce that this individual unit was using ~154 CCF per month on its own.
As to your second question, water is typically handled by the local municipality where as electricity is handled by a large state mandated and regulated monopoly. How your water is metered has no guarantee for how your electricity will be metered.
You're correct in that you never said they were immigrants. You said they were a family living 10 people to a two bedroom and running a restaurant that sells food out the window. This is an extremely common immigration tactic, and doesn't occur much outside of that scenario, but okay I will withdraw my assumption. The rest, however, remains the same. These people weren't stealing cars, they weren't stealing anything from anyone. Their water use wasn't stealing. Their water use didn't take water out of your house and it didn't adversely affect anyone or anything aside from a poorly planned HOA water monitoring system. Like you said, these units are owned primarily by single owners. Why shouldn't they have individual meters? $180 a month is a miserable HOA fee and a high water bill for a single person in a condo alone as well. I don't know why they'd have to pay for their own meter or monitoring service, that's never been the case anywhere I've ever lived, but I'm positive they saved money in the long run assuming the HOA reflected the change in their monthly dues. But again, they didn't steal and they didn't fuck over their neighbors. They fed people, boosted the local economy, and shone a light on shitty HOA practices.
So any system that has functioned historically should never be reconsidered or replaced? Who exactly was it working for? Are you worried about the bottom line of your HOA?
I've gotta say, it sounds like the only ones doing the fucking over here are the HOA to it's tenants, then using the totally not migrant renters as a scapegoat. pretty typical HOA stuff in my experience.
Just gonna point out, if the HOA owns the water system for the neighborhood privately, then submetered utilities will need to be measured and reported by the HOA or a third party in contract with the HOA. Thus, submetering service costs increases an individual's monthly cost of water (though they were like also overpaying for the water before, so that the HOA funds have a buffer).
Also the $180 HOA fee certainly was not just for water.
Wow that is incredibly racist
Who do you think pays the HOA? It's not an outside entity, it's a democratically elected board of homeowners. The funds for the HOA come from homeowners. Overusing resources from a common community fund hurts the community.
Well before 2008 it was apartments and a developer bought it up to convert into low cost condos. At that time the apartments had sub-metering, but when the developer bought it he let go of the sub-metering because adding a middle man service increases costs such as service and metering fees. When you pay for services as a group it's generally cheaper as a whole than everyone doing it themselves.
$185 a month covered all outdoor grounds keeping, the parking lot, the pool, the club house, the outside building maintenance (siding, shutters, etc), the roof, and the water bill. That's an absolutely phenomenal rate and you don't know what you're talking about.
Well I don't know what to tell you, but it's generally the case for any surprise bills at every HOA I've heard of. It's called a Special Assessment.
The HOA at this point had not raised rates in 5 years and they were due to do so. The water usage issue was further exacerbating the issue. The HOA board proposed either raising rates to $225 and doing no metering changes or installing sub-metering and only raising rates to $200. I can't be certain, but I wouldn't be surprised if it came out as a wash for sub-metering.
Do you not know what an HOA is? The HOA didn't have any tenants, it's an elected board of people who live in the community and make business decisions for them. HOAs are popular in the US because their goal is to take care of communal needs efficiently and to preserve the value of everyone's property. HOAs get a lot of crap because of nosey neighbors and Karens with a god complex, but almost any new neighborhood/condo/community you buy into will have an HOA for the communal benefit. People have horror stories, but they are still the most popular option for new home buyers.
The tenants were because about 35% of the units were owned by individuals who then privately rented them out. This HOA had a restriction that no more than 40% of units could be rented out and no one could own more than 2 units. Most of the landlords were people who had previously lived there and moved elsewhere, not major organizations.
Maybe you're thinking of property management companies?
Yes, as a property owner living in an HOA community I was concerned about the bottom line of the HOA community fund. If your HOA doesn't have adequate savings and contributions to a savings account they lose FHA compliance and it becomes infinitely harder to sell your property when the time comes. If your HOA doesn't meet FHA requirements your property value will plummet. What do you think an HOA does?