A frustrated rebel
I have been rationed.
Apparently.
Our Glorious Leaders in their infinite wisdom have decided to allocate 30,000 litres of free water for each household. Of course I whipped out my trusty calculator, and working on the basis that there are two of us in the household, that comes to 15,000 litres each. I'm quite good at maths.
That should be no problem.
Herself is one of those who goes for bottled water [which I think tastes revolting] so I should be able to grab some of her allocation of tap water. Now I use tap water [which tastes revolting] for making a mug of tea [or ten] but I doubt I drink 44 litres a day so that should be fine.
We don't use much water here. I can cut my showers from once a month down to once a year and the jax surely doesn't need to be flushed every time? I can always take to pissing in the garden which doesn't need any flushing whatsoever. Herself can revert to washing our clothes in the stream across the road as she used to before I spoiled her by buying a washing machine.
Of course all the above is purely academic. They installed my meter out on the lane. One half of it is presumably connected to the water main and the other side is connected to… well, nothing. They can bitch at me to connect it but they can fuck off. The only way they can get that done is to a) pay for it and do it themselves and b) do it without digging up any of my garden. I already have a connection to the main, and only I know where it is and it certainly isn't connected via a stopcock out on the lane so they have fuck all method of switching me off. The only way they could conceivably cut me off is to do so at the mains stopcock in my garden and to access that they would have to trespass. Our gubmint passed one of their laws saying I am entitled to use force against trespassers so that's OK.
Of course all the above poses a problem. On the face of it, I won't have to pay any water charges at all and this places me in a very awkward position.
How the fuck can I refuse to pay a bill of €0.00 ?
And you can collect rainwater in barrels. I can envisage a future government then slapping a barrel tax on householders.
I already do, but that water is essentially only useful for the garden. I'm not going to start collecting buckets of water from the barrel to flush the jax. Anyways, they have turned me off any concept that smacks of "conservation".
That's just the 'introductory' pre-election offer, don't forget that the water supply will be effectively ptivatised and a 'regulator' will set the prices from next January. Plus there is an outfall / sewage tax in the pipeline (sic) for the future, mark my words.
I'm well aware of that. Of course it will be privatised and of course the rates will go through the roof. They still have no way of cutting me off though! 😉
As for a sewage tax – are they going to meter my outfall? Heh!
"are they going to meter my outfall"
No, they will do what they do here, either base it on your water usage or if that's not available make up a valuation for your hovel (rateable value) and charge you a proportion of it each year in waste water charges. Then they'll charge you another proportion for the police, and a proportion for the fire service etc.
Here it's even more insane. They charge for delivering potable water to the property. They charge for the removal and treatment of what they call 'waste water' but the icing on the cake they charge for the drainage of the fucking roof.
Tell them you will relocate the downspouts to allow the rain to run to the ground and they refuse point blank to reduce their charges. They argue it will run into the road drains and as they cannot charge the highways authority (though they never explain why) you still have to pay. Seems to me that both here and in Ireland the pot is almost at boiling point. BRING IT ON.
All rainwater in this establishment goes one of two ways – into the lake or into the ground through soakpits.
Actually that is a good point – I think I'll charge Irish Water for contributing to the water-table.
Yes, they charge for the drainage of the roof – but tell them all the gutters run into properly constructed soakaways, as yet they don't charge for that (or rather they allow a small discount to the waste bill).
They can fuck off on that score too. They can try and disconnect my pipe to the sewers, but there isn't one.
septic tank charge, or mains connection tax, either way, they will tax your outfall eventually
really the nothing that will be free will be arrest and prison
the only thing that will be free will be arrest and prison
But I'm already paying for that through my taxes. In fact I should demand to be arrested so I get my money's worth?
Over here if you have a well, you have no water bill. If you have a septic tank, you have no sewer (outfall) bill. Though if you are connected to the municipal water and/or sewers you pay through the nose.
If I had the cash, I'd sink a well. There is ground-water here but it's quite deep. It would nearly be worth it though just to frustrate the bastards.
…………… that'll be €500 for planning permission and €5000 in development charges please!
Just had a thought on that zero bill. Overpay it by about ten cents then let them sort out the overpayment and repayment – if their systems allow them to given that there is a zero amount in the equation.
hey would only take it as an indication that I had money and would invent ways to get more off me.
"The only way they could conceivably cut me off is to do so at the mains stopcock in my garden and to access that they would have to trespass."
or possibly find the connection point on the mains and construct a new stop-cock on the feed to your garden………………and then turn that stop-cock to off
but they might just assume that your water use is just more leakage from the system and not go looking for the stopcock in the garden
The connection [as far as they are concerned] could be anywhere on a 100 yard stretch of road. They would have to dig one hell of a trench to find it.
See what happens in Spain GD.
http://www.thelocal.es/20131112/spains-solar-police-to-kick-in-your-door
Not much chance of it happening round your way though.