Atlanta homeowners angered by the recent spike in water bills to pay for the city's multibillion-dollar sewer renovation, take heed: At least you can complain more directly than Joshua Dylan.
Dylan, who lives at Post Peachtree Hills, says he received a bill in August that said he used almost triple the amount of water he did the month before, though he swears he used no more water than usual.
The bill came after the city increased water rates 12 percent in July, raising the ire of anyone turning on a tap.
But unlike homeowners, apartment dwellers such as Dylan can't challenge their bills at City Hall. Instead, they must appeal to apartment management, which is charged for all water consumed at a property, not individual units.
"I've never had the water issues that I have now," said Dylan, who moved to Atlanta a little more than a year ago.
It's becoming an issue at apartment complexes across the city as operators find themselves with vastly larger bills, leaders in the apartment community said.
Apartment owners can only pass on the charges that they get from a municipality and are prohibited by law from padding bills, said Bob Love, a board member and past president of the Atlanta Apartment Association and the Georgia Apartment Association.
They often only recover as much as 90 percent of their costs, he said, because they don't pass on water used to fill pools or in laundry rooms, though the law allows them to do so.
"We are not allowed to make a profit on water," said Love, who also is president of the Love Properties management company. "We are not a utility."
How apartment residents are charged is changing as complexes update their equipment, Love said. Most properties built in the past 10 years have "sub" meters, which are individual meters for each unit. Older properties may use a "flat-rate" single-meter system that charges based on a resident's history.
Dylan said that between June and July, he used 1,388 gallons, according to his billing records. Between July and August, his consumption jumped to 4,120 gallons. His next bill showed an equal consumption, even though he was away for a week.
When he appealed to apartment management, he got nowhere. Initially he refused to pay because he said the billing was inaccurate, but he relented after fearing he would be evicted.
Terri Sherrod, a spokeswoman for Atlanta-based Post Properties, said before July the city was estimating bills for Post Peachtree Hills instead of reading the meters. But that month the city installed new meters that showed consumption was being underestimated. The complex's average went from 200,000 to 300,000 gallons a month to 550,000 to 700,000 gallons a month.
"I can see why that would be hard for people to understand," she said. "They have been accustomed to getting a lower bill because of the estimating."
Janet Ward, a spokeswoman for the Atlanta Department of Watershed Management, said the city hears from apartment residents often but can only direct them back to their complex management. Callers in apartment communities with single meters are often frustrated because two neighbors can receive the similar bills, even though one resident is a miser user while the other lets the tap flow.
"You're pretty much out of luck," she said.
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