There is a long, thin, rubber-y line wrapped around/connected to the water line pictured below.
Other angle:
The piece in question is loosely hanging via a zip tie on my main water line about shoulder height and can be moved up/down easily.
this post was submitted on 21 Sep 2025
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What is this thing?
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They send someone every month here. A guy comes down the street looking at all the meters (they are under metal plates in front yards) and putting info into a phone. I guess the city has an app. He has a metal pry bar with a long handle he uses to open them
So you pay the actual use for each month?
Yes, the city bundles water, sewer, and garbage pickup, recycling and bills monthly.
It’s not the true actual usage. The water usage is recorded directly by the meter and should be accurate but sewage usage is not metered at all. They just assume that all the water you use will end up down the drain or down a toilet in your house so they bill you for the exact same volume of both sewage and water. This can get very far out of whack if you’re using a lot of water outdoors (filling up a swimming pool, watering your garden, washing your car, pressure washing for outdoor cleanup, etc).
For the pool you can generally inform the water/sewer department(s) of that and request an exemption. They'll usually use your average water consumption as your sewer bill for that month.
For ongoing usage that doesn't enter the sewer, such as irrigation, you can often request a second meter be installed, for which sewage isn't billed.
Oh that’s really interesting! Thanks for the info!
My municipality charges a flat rate for sewer and use rate for water.
Yes and I used to have a well at one house I lived in, and they didn't charge me for water or sewer because of what you say here, they didn't have a way to measure it since I wasn't buying water.
If you go up to one of those covers and look at it, you'll probably find that the meter well is using a nonstandard bolt head (often five-sided) in an effort to prevent tampering. I bet that used to work a lot better before people could just buy any weird tool they wanted on Amazon (though I wonder if anyone cares now that water is such a tiny fraction of most people's monthly budgets).
In the 1990s, we used to live next to a couple, Julio & Georgina. They would fight all the time, screaming in Spanish. We never really talked to them. One month we couldn't pay our water bill and the guy came and shut it off.
As the truck pulled away from the curb, Julio EXPLODES from his house, screaming cusses in Spanish with the biggest wrench I have ever seen. Turns my water back on, shakes the massive wrench at the retreating truck, still yelling at them, nods at me and stomps back into his house.
That's amazing. Definitely one of those Chaotic neighbors you want to be on the good side of.