It's interesting that it appears that most folks would rather pay higher water bills to help a customer with an unusually high water bill. Of course that's assuming that the water company has costs to cover in providing water.
On a more serious note, if the leakage was isolated to irrigation and it was fixed and the water usage returned to normal, then you could make a legitimate argument that the water didn't go down the sewer and you should get a one time sewer usage credit. (Even clean water has to get treated once in goes in the sewer.
But imagine if everybody with irrigation leaks filed for adjjustments. That's why the water provider doesn't like to give adjustments.
And in reading the comments, many customers don't catch the leak in irrigation for a very long time. At what point should leaks be the customer's responsibility to pay for wasted water. Or should all customers chip in a little with higher water fees to help the poor customer with the high water bill due to wasted water?
So often though, the customer will fix an irrigation leak or other leak and claim they never had a leak and the bill will majically go back to normal. That defies the principle of how a water meter works. Usually old meters may stick or slow down but very rarely skip forward and then return to normal
there is a potential solution though. You can buy a FLUME water usage meter on amazon for about $200 and never have a surprise bill again. You can set it to give you notices of high water usage and it tracks hourly usage. So if the meter is running when you're away, yoiu know there's a problem immediately.
And there might be another solution also. When you look on Amazon you'll notice there's another water meter app that's only good for certain areas of the country. I think this hints that the water provider has worked a deal to lower the cost of a personal meter for their customers.
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