A man was stunned to discover his water meter had recorded him using enough water in 24 hours to fill 300 baths after his bill soared to £7,000.
Mick Foy couldn’t believe it when he checked his meter, which said he’d used more than a million litres in under a month.
Mick Foy, of Cedar Close, Ditton, says he cannot see any kind of leak in or around his property
The first he knew about it was when he got a call in July from South East Water, who told him his bill had spiked to £7,000 after years of consistent bills.
The 64-year-old – who lives with his wife Debbie in a three-bedroom property in Cedar Close, Ditton – 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.’”
Mick Foy says the meter has been spinning out of control for weeks
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 meter reading, and 24 hours later returned to find it had recorded that his property had used 54,000 litres – about 300 baths.
When South East Water’s plumber failed to show on August 4, Mick says he grew “frustrated”.
He said: “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.”
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 for today (August 20), and says a supervisor will oversee the work, but Mick says this isn’t good enough.
Mick’s 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 told us it was not able to comment on individual cases but would be very happy to escalate the customer’s concerns internally “as a matter of urgency”.
In the meantime, Mick says he hasn’t spotted any flooding or obvious leak nearby, so is hoping the issue is simply a faulty meter.