LeakBird

(June 2, 2009, UPI.com)
A Tampa, Fla., couple said it took them several months to resolve the issue of a monthly water bill for more than $21,000.
Ralph and Diana Salgado said their water bill usually falls between $21 and $110 each month, but their July 2008 bill from the Tampa Water Department totaled $21,600, indicating that [...]

In order to calculate how much your toilet wastes in a city like San Francisco, we need to know the water footprint of your entire building. Of course, if you’re a property manager or landlord, you’ll be especially interested in this, as tenants don’t foot the water bills anyhow.  I’m going to give facts from [...]

If you recently received a high water bill, there’s a better than 90% chance that it was due to a running or leaking toilet.
Of course, in order to know that your water bill is a bit above the norm, you ought to know your typical, average monthly or bi-monthly water bill.  In a recent post, [...]

There’s a fantastic article called 15 Easy Toilet Tune Ups that runs through a few of the sounds your toilet makes when it’s on the fritz, that is, running or leaking or in need of repair.
Basically, even though I know there are more sounds a toilet can make, I’ve put together a list of seven:

The [...]

There’s no such thing as a free lunch.
Milton Friedman

It can be said that we don’t value what we don’t pay for. To tenants who don’t foot their units’ water bills, a running toilet may only mean a minor audible nuisance.  To a landlord or property manager, a running toilet means a higher water bill and [...]

The manager relies on systems, the leader relies on people.
Unknown
Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.
Murphy’s Law

When it comes to running toilets, you can’t rely on your tenants to report them, unless you have a system in place. In other words, people depend on systems. Chapters 5 and 6 will explore systems in further [...]

(April 20, 2009, The Plain Dealer)
Landlord James Kelly isn’t convinced. He has wrestled with the division for four months over a $1,300 combined water and sewer bill — five times larger than normal for a house he owns in Cleveland. The house is empty, and at one point the water was turned off for repairs. [...]

If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?
George Berkeley
Before we move on, let’s rephrase Berkeley’s famous question:
If a toilet runs in the bathroom and no is around to hear it, does it make a sound?
The latter part of this chapter will address [...]

I don’t think you can get away with putting your talents in a toilet bowl and not having them flushed away.
Sean Penn
If something can go wrong, it will.
Murphy’s Law
Whether it’s talent, water or cash flows, if they’re in the toilet bowl chances are one hundred percent they’ll get flushed away. And when it comes to [...]

Toilets run.
Dana Haasz
Conservation Administrator, SFPUC
If you are a property manager, a landlord, or a water manager, or if you would like to be, this e-book is written for you.
We at LeakBird have done hundreds of hours of research over the past two years and would like to share with you what we have learned.
This e-book [...]

Perhaps you’re new to the field of
property management or landlording, or
weathered by years of experience. Two
things, however, you hold dear no
matter what level you operate from.
Your two most precious resources
are MONEY & WATER.
If you have cash flows that are secure,
you don’t have to evict your tenant
due to foreclosure.  If you have a
secure water supply, you [...]

The Boston Globe recently ran an op-ed about water conservation in rental properties entitled, “Do Environmentalists Rent Property?“, which also has some fantastic comments from landlords and tenants in the greater Boston area.  The author wonders if she’s the only one who is a good tenant when it comes to not using more water than [...]

If a toilet runs in the bathroom, will anybody hear? You can bet your bottom dollar they’ll hear, but only when the property manager or landlord receives the high water bill, that is, AFTER THE FACT. And believe us, it’s loud and clear!
I remember my talk with Dana Haasz, Conservation Administrator for the San Francisco [...]

The average household US water bill varies widely from state to state and municipality to municipality.  Small town household water rates fall somewhere between $1.00 and $2.00 per 748 gallons of water or HCF (hundred cubic feet).  Large city household water rates are from $2.00 to $3.00 per 748 gallons of water.  (Nationally, water rates [...]

(March 10, 2009, The Orange County Register)
When Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger called on Californians to reduce water use in the face of severe drought conditions, 78 households in The Reserve neighborhood of San Clemente were resting easy.
Those residents had signed on to participate in The Reserve Outdoor Sustainability Project, a study measuring the effects of efficient [...]

Many landlords and property managers, such as Jeff Porter at USA Landlord, establish excellent “water conservation programs” for their tenants, involving a number of elements:

Tenant Education
Tenant Motivation
Installation of Water Conservation Devices

While it’s essential to have a conservation program for your buildings, being proactive with tenants who don’t foot their own water bills can take a [...]

I’ve written about how to calculate your San Francisco water bill, but I thought it might be useful to know how the SFPUC functions and just how many landlords and property managers are getting excessively high water bills due to the likes of tenants’ running toilet conditions everyday.
Back in June of 2008, I spoke with [...]

If you’re a landlord or property manager, there are certain things you shouldn’t be doing when it comes to water conservation in your buildings.  We’ve compiled the top seven “Worst Practices” here:

 
Not Monitoring Your Tenants’ Running Toilets: The toilet is the single biggest culprit when it comes to in-building water waste.  There are lots of [...]

Do your tenants’ toilets keep constantly running? Do you receive high water bills maybe once or twice a year? What approaches do you take to combat this problem? What is your system for dealing with it, as a landlord or property manager?
We randomly called 10 property managers in San Francisco to enquire into this issue. [...]

(Dec. 17, 2008, WBBH-TV)
A homeowner took his water woes to the Collier County Commission after receiving an $1,100 water bill for the month of August. But commissioners washed John Martinowich’s hopes down the drain…
According to his August water bill, 124,000 gallons of water was used – more than 20 times higher than his household’s normal [...]

(Nov. 29, 2008, The Reading Eagle)
Huge increases in Birdsboro water-sewer bills have customers wondering whether there’s something wrong with new meters installed by the Birdsboro Municipal Authority…

(Nov. 1, 2008, Miami Herald)
Calderon noted that most high bills are caused by a leaking toilet, guests staying in the home or tampering.

(Nov. 3, 2008, The Columbus Dispatch)
Almost 8,000 Ohio American Water customers in Franklin County face a rate increase of 30 percent for water and almost 37 percent for sewer service, according to the Ohio Consumers’ Counsel.
American Water, which serves more than 50,000 customers across Ohio, will present its request for a rate increase to the [...]