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A COUPLE forced from their home by back-to-back hurricanes say they were stunned when they received their water bill.
Melanie and Richard Scheiderman weren’t even living in their house when they supposedly racked up the staggering charges.
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The pair typically pay around $150 at the property they rent in St. Petersburg, Florida.
So when they discovered a bill of $1,147 – more than seven times their normal, they knew something had gone wrong.
Earlier this year, when Hurricanes Helene and Milton ravaged the Sunshine State, water was briefly shut off in the city on the west coast of Florida.
The couple believe that when the water was turned back on, the extreme pressure triggered a leakage at her home.
Melanie called the city for help, but when she didn’t get any answers, she went to her landlord.
“He came out and he couldn’t see,” she told local NBC affiliate WFLA.
When the landlord turned the water on and it started running, he called a leak detection specialist.
It was then that a slow leak was found in the couple’s bathroom.
“It’s likely that it was a slow leak that should’ve been caught if they were properly reading the meters, and if it wasn’t caused by the city’s shut-off and shut-on, then we should’ve seen it,” she said.
The City of St. Petersburg did not respond immediately to The U.S. Sun’s requests for comment.
A city spokesperson earlier put out a statement denying the Scheidermans’ claims.
The spokesperson said that while the city’s drinking water system did lose pressure for “approximately 12 hours overnight” between October 9 and October 10, the city had begun to “slowly restore pressure” after just nine hours.
They added that it wasn’t possible for a loss of system pressure to have caused the Scheidermans’ pipes to spring a leak.
The spokesperson said that the drinking water system was deliberately depressurized slowly so as to prevent a pressure spike which could have damaged plumbing.
They added that the couple’s high bill was in fact down to a meter reading taken on November 19, weeks after the back-to-back hurricanes that hit the state.
The spokesperson said it was more likely the couple had a plumbing issue on their property separate from the hurricanes.
ST. PETERSBURG CITY STATEMENT
FOLLOWING news a couple were charged over seven times their regular water bill, a spokesperson for the City of St. Petersburg issued the following statement:
“The drinking water system was down for 12 hours, less than one day.
“The drinking water system lost pressure for approximately 12 hours overnight October 9-10, 2024.
“Within nine hours of initial pressure loss, the City began to be slowly restore pressure.
“It is not possible for the loss of system pressure to have caused the customer’s plumbing to spring a leak.
“The repressurization of the system was deliberately done slowly so as not to cause a pressure spike (high pressure) that could impact the customer’s plumbing.
“We are following all the above normal procedures to assist customers who experienced a higher-than-expected utility bill regardless of when it happened, either before, during, or after one of the storms.
“In this case, the customer’s most recent high bill was a result of a meter reading that was taken on 11/19, well after hurricanes Debby, Helene, and Milton.
“This indicates to us that they likely have a plumbing issue on their private property that they may be able to address through the leak adjustment process.
“They should call 727-893-7341, Mon-Fri, 8am-5pm, for assistance.”
St. Petersburg, close to the city of Tampa, was one of the worst-affected parts of Florida in this year’s hurricanes.
Hurricane Milton alone caused an estimated $75 million in damage to the city’s public infrastructure, including to Tropicana Field, home of the Tampa Bay Rays of Major League Baseball.
More than 20 inches of rain hit parts of the city in the space of just six hours, over three times the previous record.
In addition, the pier’s seawall in the city was critically damaged, with $3.5 million being put aside to repair St. Petersburg’s waterfront infrastructure.
