I feel that I was the first Landlord to have to address the irresponsible water committee, and I would love to find out for sure if any other Landlords were billed back in the fall of 2007 for any of their empty rental units. I first started receiving bills from the water department,(I will check my records,) I believe in August of 2007. I was renovating the MHP I own, and sometimes I had units empty due to the renovations for up to 3 months. Let me state for the record I have owned this park for 15 years.
One day when I went to have the water service established in my own name for one of the units I needed to clean, Mary Walters ask me if I was interested in paying $25.00 per rental unit, which was a one time fee, so that I could call and have the water turned on and off as I needed it in my name. I agreed, as she pointed out that it would save me a trip to Marion each time I needed the water turned on for cleaning purposes. I paid them a total of $475.00 for I own nineteen units. Little did I realize the dirty politics that would result from signing their agreement.
This worked well for both the water department and I for about 3 years. All of a sudden when I called for service to be connected to one of the units, I started receiving bills for units I had empty at the time, but that I had not requested service for as they did not need to be cleaned. When I called Ms. Walters to address the confusion, she very rudely told me that I owed for those bills. I told her that I did not owe for the bills and the fight began with the Water Department.
I refused to pay it. I went to the Water Department to discuss the issue Ms. Waters was very rude and insistent that I had to pay those bills. I refused, and I was so upset I was literally in tears. After demanding to talk to Mr. Carter,(the Water Dept. Forman,) I was escorted into and office by Mr. Carter and Ms. Walter who informed me that I was just one of the first Landlords that was being charged this way due to a policy change at the Department. I told them, that was not the agreement or the understanding and the way we had conducted business since signing their agreement with me. They tried to coax me into agreeing to be one of the first Landlords to be billed this way. I refused for I knew it was not fair and that I was being railroaded and pressured to agree to and unfair billing practice. No Way! Upon questioning them, if I was the only Landlord in the County to be billed this way, they admitted to me that I was one of the first and that as other Landlords came in they also would be forced into being billed the same as I was. I told them I would not agree to be one of the first and that I was being treated unfairly.
Can you imagine how I felt that day? I knew they were going to use me to try to sneak their dirty policy by onto all of the Landlords without so much as a public hearing, or any input for any of the citizens under their authority. We used to call this in my day as "Dirty Back Door Politics." I wasn't having any of it.