I rent on a property of 5 acres, there are 7 other 5 acre properties. we are all on one community well. this well has been nothing but a problem since i moved in here but that is a much longer story. they are building a gazillion dollar house a few properties away and we are having major problems w/ them. this week the builder wanted to tap his line into the community well. no problem, except he turned the water off at the well which left all 8 other houses with no water. he did this with no advanced notice at all. he has had several problems with the line and has turned the water off 3 times this week. all without advanced notice. the other home owners say that there is nothing we can do to stop him because there are no legal documents regarding usage of the well and any one of us can turn the water off at any time. i think this is a bunch of crap and i am tired of dealing with brown water each time the water is turned back on. i have currently been out of water for the last five hrs. because there was a break in the line that they just installed. my question is what can i do to stop this from happening in the future and what legal recourse is there? i am asking this because the are starting construction on another house this summer and i don't want to deal with this all year long. sorry the post is so long.

-- amber (ambrosia75_@hotmail.com), February 17, 2001

Answers

Response to builder causing problems

in this day and age, go see a lawyer. nothing else you can really do

-- gene ward (gward34847@aol.com), February 17, 2001.

What does your Land lord say? I would be raising hell with him. I put rent in an escrow account until he solves the problem.

-- renee oneill{md.} (oneillsr@home.com), February 17, 2001.

Amber,

It would probably be of some help if we knew where you are located (what state?). I am in Ohio, in my state there is a certain number of residences that may operate from 1 well, I think that it may be 5 in Ohio. Over that amount of connections the unit becomes a "public water system". The "public water system" is regulated by the state health department.

Check with your local (county) health department, they should be willing to give you, the taxpayer (and voter); some assistance. That is of course if you are in fact, in a state; or even in the United States (this is after all the World Wide Web). Good pumping...

-- Ed Copp (OH) (edcopp@yahoo.com), February 17, 2001.

i rent a room out of a large house so the landlord lives here too. she is just as frustrated and upset. she says she is going to contact the county. the builder is only hooking into the line temporarily. they plan on running their own water,sewer,electric and cable from the main road before they sell the house. which also means they will be digging up our road. i am not looking forward to that either. i live in washington state.

-- amber (ambrosia75_@hotmail.com), February 17, 2001.

I am a realtor here in Alaska, and most of the houses we sell have wells. It is pretty amazing to have that many people on a community well without a private written shared well agreement. If there is no agreement and it is not governed by any other entity there is very little that can be done.

There must be something in writing somewhere that governs the well or the builder would have no right to hook up in the first place. Get ahold of that piece of paper and see if there is anything that can be done. If not...move.

-- marty van diest (martyv@remax.net), February 17, 2001.

I am in Washington state and I share my well with 4 other homes. Shared wells fall under state and county jurisdictions, they just don't know it. We had a hard time getting someone to stamp and sign off approval of ours to satisfy our VA loan. Shared wells fall into their own little category in every department imaginable.

I can assure you a builder cannot hook into your water line without the written approval of the well owner. Who's property is the well on and who pays the electric bill for the pump? This should be the first person to talk to about no water and dirty water.

If the builder has dirty leaky lines and you are getting brown water, he is indeed breaking environmental laws and violating health code. He cannot connect into the water system unless his building permit is signed off for plumbing. I bet he doesn't have a permit. Call the county building inspecter and report this guy. The building ispecter can also tell you what other agencies to report to.

Sometimes the quickest solution is to get in the guy's face and do the screaming banshee routine with plenty of threats and hysterics and a promise to repeat it everytime there is no water. Guys hate that and will avoid risking it happening again.

-- Laura (gsend@hotmail.com), February 17, 2001.

Amber: Unless I'm missing something here each house should have a shutoff valve near the pump that cuts off each house individually without closing off the other familys. Call out a building inspecter because somethings not right....Kirk

-- Kirk Davis (kirkay@yahoo.com), February 17, 2001.

I, too, would be interested to know whether the builder has permission and whether it's in writing (very important obviously!). If he does, I'd arm myself with knowledge by checking out all the avenues everyone else has suggested and finding out exactly what legal recourse I would have if push comes to shove. Then, approach the owner/controller of the well and ask for his help in suggesting a simple solution to the builder ~ installing a cutoff valve on his line so he can turn the water off any time he wants without affecting everyone else. I'd let him in on everything I'd found out in doing my homework, then would go with him to talk to the builder and sit quietly until the builder denied our request. THEN, following the well owner/controller's lead, I'd bring out the big guns and inform the builder calmly of what we could do if he doesn't comply with our request.

If you approach the builder with guns drawn, he more than likely will take a defensive stance and not want to go along with you just because you hacked him off. If you stay calm and nice, his head won't be full of "SHE can't do that to ME!" crap and there will be room in there for him to realize on his own that installing the cutoff would be MUCH cheaper than a legal fight that just may get his construction shut down until it's resolved.

Hubby says that when any of the women he's had in his life would pull the screaming banshee act on him, all he wanted to do was get away from her and not do what she wanted just to spite her, even if it meant "cutting off his own nose." If a guy did that, he would just punch him out (this, of course, was in his younger days! LOL!). I think that's part of the reason we get along so well ~ I'm the type that patinetly tries to catch more flies with honey while holding a can of fly spray behind my back just in case the honey doesn't work. He says that watching me do that with anyone who tries to "push us around" scares the hell out of him! LOL!

-- Wingnut (wingnut@moment.net), February 18, 2001.

thank you for all of your responses. you have given me some good ideas and also confirmed my suspicions that something is not right her. i printed all of this out and will give it to my landlord when she comes back next week. marty- regarding the private written agreement, i think there was one years ago. she said they used to pay a fee to have it maintained, etc. but there was a big blow out among neighbors a number of years ago. no one has paid or talked about it since. kirk- the shut off valve is a sore subject w/ me. this came up about 4 months ago when another neighbor shut off all of our water to do repairs to his house. i told him he needed to turn off his water only. he said when the original people built the house they never put one in and he looked and couldn't find it. you and i know that a bunch of phooey, all houses have them in case of emergency but don't tell him that. i guess time will tell whether i'll be showering in brown water again. : )

-- amber (ambrosia75_@hotmail.com), February 20, 2001.