A mum is furious after discovering her landlord is using her water supply in the process of building a "massive" new house.
The mum, who lives in a rural property and has given up the stables she used for storage to make way for the new build, is anxious about her water bill sky-rocketing when it's reviewed next year. She took to Mumsnet's popular Am I Being Unreasonable thread to share her anger and frustrations, and also to seek advice on what to do in the situation.
In a post titled "[Cheeky F***er] landlord using my water supply to build a new MASSIVE house", she penned: "My landlord has reclaimed a portion of the property I've rented for over a decade and is now building a humungous five bed house there. He's tapped into my water supply for the builders to use for cement etc and hasn't had the courtesy to mention it to me, let alone ask if I mind!
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"Before I go in and tell him I know, that I am a bit miffed and would like some kind of recompense, does anyone know how much water building a new house needs...its all thermoblock, double skin, old fashioned style building - they are dinosaurs! Is there a per square metre figure for cement and render? The water is on a meter so it's costing me money too which I can ill afford let alone the cheeky f***ery of it all!"
The mum's post was met with a flurry of responses from fellow Mumsnet users, keen to share their thoughts. One suggested: "Do you have your bills for last year, to check the difference with this year? If so, just get him to pay the excess. A lot of the water used in building is for pre-wetting surfaces and for cleaning, so it's not possible to give you an accurate amount for how much would be used."
Another said: "If you pay on a meter then he's stealing from you surely? Contact the supplier for advice. Obviously he should take over the entire bill if it can't be split officially. How's he thinking it would work once the build is complete? ‘Friendly neighbour pays for all water consumption’."
A third asked: "Where is the supply being tapped into? My water meter is inside my house so only meters the water that flows through it. If he has tapped in front of your meter then I believe it won't affect you? I could be wrong."
In a follow up comment, the mum added: "Thanks for your replies. It's a rural property and I've given up a set of stables that I used for storage. This has been replaced with a new garage nearer to the house which is actually much better for us.
"I can review bills and read the meter but the build has only recently started (approx six weeks ago) so I was hoping to be able to pre-empt the usage and ask for a rent reduction to reflect it in "real time" as it were. This will obviously benefit me over the winter with everything else going up. My water is on a DD so any increase wont affect that directly until the water company review it annually which won't be til next June. So I'll probably end up with a huge hike on the DD from then... but as the house will be built I won't have much in the way of leverage.
"I obviously don't want to rock the boat as the rental market is so scary and I don't want a Section 21 landing on the mat. Equally if its reasonable of me to say "you're using £25 worth of water per 10m2 and I'd like you knock it off the rent for the next few months" then I'd be happy to suggest that nicely."
At the time of writing, 98% of Mumsnet users voted the original poster was not being unreasonable to feel so irate with her landlord's actions.
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