Houston man takes big water bill to social media to get help

HOUSTON (KTRK) -- A Houston man with a whopper of a water bill had to turn to social media to get some help.

When Doug Alexander got two huge water bills he knew something was wrong, so he called the city and was told a city employee checked the meter and found it working just fine. But it turns out no one bothered to check the meter at all and the Alexander has proof.

Alexander took home video of his effort to unearth his water meter to prove a point.

In July, he got a $455 water bill; it's typically just $40. So he complained to the Houston Public Works Department. The city told Alexander a worker went to check his meter and found nothing wrong. When a second bill of $547 came rolling in, Alexander went to check the meter himself.

His video shows what he found.

"It's thoroughly embedded in to the rest of the grass so it's been here a long time. Sure enough it's the water meter I have been looking for," Alexander said on video.

Alexander says there is no way anyone checked the meter. When he looked at the meter himself he found it read 30,000 gallons less than what the city claimed.

So he posted the video and to Facebook, Twitter, Reddit and YouTube and the city's story changed very quickly.

"Then they called me yesterday afternoon and they were back pedaling like crazy," said Alexander.

When we asked Public Works to explain what happened, we were told, "It's a new employee, and he will be instructed properly how to address issues like this moving forward."

Alexander says he's disappointed that it took a video and social media to get the cities attention.

"A citizen should not have to go to these lengths to get somebody to honestly assess the situation with the City of Houston," said Alexander.

So far, the city has knocked about $600 off the bill and apologized to Alexander. Officials told us the employee went to the wrong address.