Out here, in the middle of almost nowhere, we have some very odd utilities. I’m so very happy that we have treated water piped to us rather than having to deal with a well, but our rural water district has some very odd habits.
For one, we have to read our own meters each month – do the math with a chart they give us, and figure out how much we owe them and then write them a check – no online foolishness out here!!
Once yearly, they send a guy out to read the meters to check our work, so to say. Every year, this causes me great stress because the guy who checks the meters is scared of dogs, especially livestock guardian dogs, and he threatens them with a stick or a board, and that makes me fear that someday, my LGDs, will indeed take a bit out of this asshole.
We have asked them to just give us a call before they come out – it’s only once a year – but he is adamant. He asked me if he was supposed to call all 560 customers before he comes to check the meters – I said, “No, just us, and the probably 300 other customers who have dogs”.
Anyway, today, while I was busy doing one thing or another, they apparently came and changed out our meter.
No knock on the door. No phone call – just a Post-It Note on the garage door – with the reading from the old meter and letting us know we have a new meter.
What if that note had blown away in our Kansas winds?
It’s crazy.
But still way better than living in town!
Castle Argghhh 
Gimme well water if I can. When we lived in rural Penna., we enjoyed BOQ’s very own waterworks. The only expense was the yearly pumping of our septic tank by the friendly guy in his honey-truck.
Our septic was an old 1950’s cinderblock hole in the ground, much too small to to accommodate the effluence issuing fourth from our bums beyond one year. But helk, a yearly $200 expense was way cheaper than any municipal water and sewer bill.
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Oh, we have a septic tank, but it only needs emptying maybe every 8 years or so. And our bill is quite different from the city bill was – we have a Rural Water District that contracts for water from the city – not at the same rate as city folk pay – because we don’t have sewers or get trash pickup all included in the bill that city people get.
I don’t foresee sewers ever coming out this far – there are only three homes on the road we live on – no one could afford to pay for sewers being laid on a road where houses are 1/2 mile apart!
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That is unusual to be on municipal water, out in the country!
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Well, our water is city water, bought by our rural water district. We have two storage/pressure towers to handle the distribution.
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