TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — The owner of the popular downtown candy store, Peterbrooke Chocolatier, is still fighting unusually high water bills, but she now has someone else on her side—an expert who says something is definitely wrong.
“I would bet a lot that the water bill they’re getting is not accurate at all,” said Matt White, the president of Meter Technology Werks. “It’s pretty much impossible. “
White saw our Better Call Behnken report about Peterbrooke’s owner Jennifer Hill’s plight to prove that her small shop is not using more than 40,000 gallons of water a month. Her bills went from $40 a month to more than $700, and management at SkyPoint Condominium, where she rents space, ruled out a leak but did not adjust her bill.
Hill turned to Investigator Shannon Behnken to help get answers, saying she might have to shut down the business at SkyPoint if the water bills remain high.
White tested the meter and says it is working fine, but there’s clearly a problem. He says the meter ran nonstop, as he confirmed there was no water running in the small shop at the time.
“I think the water really is going through the meter,” White said. “I just don’t know where it goes after it gets out of the meter.”
White shared his findings with the SkyPoint Condominium General Manager and says a plumber is scheduled to check pipes next week and make sure retail tenants are being charged for the water they’re using, and not someone else’s water.
“This space was reallocated, so it was one certain size and then it got split up or downsized, and my assumption is the water meter was set up to provide for a certain space and that space changed, but the water meter is still there, even though the plumbing may have changed,” White said.