# water theft



## nickbish (Aug 30, 2011)

Not sure if anyone else has experience of this and if so how they resolved it.
We live in a rural chalet with our water coming from a meter appx half K away on the slopes of the mountain behind our house. We noticed that the bills were getting bigger and bigger so went to the town hall,who sent a plumber.
The plumber told us that anything our side of the water meter is our problem,but said he would look anyway when i told him i thought that someone had tapped into the supply. He came back and told us that all was well and no-one had tapped into our water and he had no solution.
We subsequently got another plumber who was not from the town hall and he found,within 10 minutes,that the shepherd had indeed tapped our supply and was using the water. We will of course repair the supply at our expense,but when we went to the town hall to try to get a refund they told us it was our problem and they would refund no money.
We were told that we should denounce the shepherd,but we think that this route will only bring us more problems as it is a very close knit rural community. We are hoping that when the shepherd knows he has been sussed he will not try it again. Has anyone else had a similar problem?


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## Stravinsky (Aug 12, 2007)

nickbish said:


> Not sure if anyone else has experience of this and if so how they resolved it.
> We live in a rural chalet with our water coming from a meter appx half K away on the slopes of the mountain behind our house. We noticed that the bills were getting bigger and bigger so went to the town hall,who sent a plumber.
> The plumber told us that anything our side of the water meter is our problem,but said he would look anyway when i told him i thought that someone had tapped into the supply. He came back and told us that all was well and no-one had tapped into our water and he had no solution.
> We subsequently got another plumber who was not from the town hall and he found,within 10 minutes,that the shepherd had indeed tapped our supply and was using the water. We will of course repair the supply at our expense,but when we went to the town hall to try to get a refund they told us it was our problem and they would refund no money.
> We were told that we should denounce the shepherd,but we think that this route will only bring us more problems as it is a very close knit rural community. We are hoping that when the shepherd knows he has been sussed he will not try it again. Has anyone else had a similar problem?


The threat of a denuncia would probably put the shepherd off
I saw a similar thing here, where a local builder tapped into a nearby holiday home to use water to assist them building a house. The hose stretched a long way. When the owner was alerted they sliced the hose off and denounced the builder iirc


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## Overandout (Nov 10, 2012)

Not something that happens regularly in Madrid I have to say, but I think we need to be aware of cultural influences here.

I doubt very much that the shepherd was consciously "stealing" your water, he probably found the pipe and tapped into it without thinking of the consequences or even knowing that it was on your metered supply.

Instead of creating community animosity by way of threatening police intervention, why not approach him in a freindly way explaining that he had connected to the mains after your meter you can't continue to pay his water consumption, but that youd be prepared to allow him to continue to use the water if he agrees to pay you.

Alternatively, show him where your meter is so that he can reconsider where he taps into the system....


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## nickbish (Aug 30, 2011)

Hmmmm, wish i could share your view,but the shepherd would have had to turn the water off at the meter to tap into it in the first place and the Spanish plumber i am now using to 'repair' the supply seems clear that it is not unusual and that the guy knew exactly what he was doing.
As i said i have no wish to threaten any legal action,but my water bill for 3 months is 700 euros!!and i am blowed if i am going to ask him nicely if he wants to 'share' my water. 
I think that i will use the 'someone has tapped into my water supply and if it happens again i will take out a denuncia' approach and hope this works.


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## 90199 (Mar 21, 2010)

Could you perhaps move the water meter, and mount it on your house wall?


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## thrax (Nov 13, 2008)

There are two taps which control water into our and our neighbour's property. Both taps have to be open. Therefore we share the water pressure when it comes in, once every two o0r three days. He has an avocado plantation so guess what. In order to water his plantation he turns our tap off so he gets the full pressure and more water. OK it isn't stealing but we had no idea about this tap and have been wondering over the last five months why we were getting no water and our well kept running dry. Now we know so we are going to turn his water off and put a padlock on the taps. Obviously, we will have had no idea at all that it was his water we turned off.....


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## drefach (Dec 31, 2014)

Not sure the shepherd is that naïve, where did he get his water from before!!


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