They got a mysterious $24,000 water bill. Then the shut-off notice came.

If they did not pay at least $6,000 immediately, the city said, it would shut off the water to the home the woman shared with her husband, a diabetic car-service driver, and their 9- and 15-year-old children.

NEW YORK — In March, as Mayor Eric Adams began an aggressive crackdown on New York City landlords who were behind on water bill payments, a public school safety agent and her family were presented with a brand-new $24,000 water bill.

If they did not pay at least $6,000 immediately, the city said, it would shut off the water to the home the woman shared with her husband, a diabetic car-service driver, and their 9- and 15-year-old children.

The mayor’s crackdown — announced in front of a boutique Manhattan hotel that was in arrears — suggested he was targeting large landlords, as a way to drum up payments to help preserve the vast water system on which all New Yorkers rely.

But the city may also be targeting homeowners who are aging, taking care of young children or suffering from serious medical problems, in defiance of state and city regulations that seek to protect vulnerable New Yorkers, according to a lawsuit filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn.

The crackdown by the city’s Department of Environmental Protection comes as it is struggling to fund its vast portfolio, a task made more difficult by the mayor’s diversion of more than $1.4 billion from the department to other city needs.

But the environmental agency’s demands are pressing: It must maintain the water and sewer systems, while also making the city less susceptible to flash flooding, a phenomenon that is growing more common with climate change. In 2021, flash flooding associated with Hurricane Ida drowned 11 New Yorkers in basements.

But the most visible role of the agency, which supports its operations with water payments, is to deliver more than 1 billion gallons of water a day to New York City and its environs.

Roughly 1 in 9 of the city’s water ratepayers is behind on water payments, with the biggest “delinquent” of all being New York state. Rarely does the city go after small residential customers with such determination.

“This is the most aggressive enforcement posture that DEP has taken in a long time,” Albert Kramer, the agency’s acting deputy commissioner of customer services, said during a water board meeting in May. He allowed that state law included protections for older people, New Yorkers with disabilities and young children.

The city’s standard water shut-off notice says as much: “You may be eligible to stop the water shut-off if you have a significant medical condition, are 62 years of age or older, disabled or have children under 6 years of age living in the household.”

Last year, the city also launched an amnesty program that allowed debt-laden customers to receive reductions in interest payments. There is also a state water-assistance program.

“We want to be compassionate to those who deserve our compassion,” Kramer said.

But the suit contains five examples of the city threatening to deny water to vulnerable residents. And though the city has yet to shut off the plaintiffs’ water, Jacquelyn Griffin, a senior staff attorney at Legal Services NYC involved in the suit, thinks the threats may be the point.

“I’m not actually convinced the city is intending to shut off the water,” Griffin said. “It really does feel, more than anything else, like a shakedown.”

Liz Garcia, a spokesperson for the mayor, said that the city abided by all applicable state laws to protect vulnerable residents from water shut-offs, but added that payment failures caused water rates to rise for all New Yorkers.

“Water shut-offs are a last resort when delinquent customers fail to communicate with us about their outstanding bills, and we always prefer to work with people to set up payment agreements,” Garcia said. “We have safeguards in place to ensure that vulnerable customers — particularly disabled and elderly individuals and families with young children — do not have their water shut off, and none of the individuals involved in this case had their water shut off. But there is no way to find out about these conditions or come to alternate solutions if customers have not communicated with DEP.”

Communication seemed to be at issue in a dispute involving Liliana Mendoza-Lebron, the 51-year-old school safety agent with the Police Department, and her husband, Harvey Mendoza, 60. After they bought their snug, single-family home in East Elmhurst, Queens, in 2010, they never received a water bill, the suit says. They were under the impression that the water payment was included in their monthly mortgage bills.

So it came as a surprise in March when the city notified them that they owed $24,000. They promptly called the customer service number, where a representative told them that to avoid a water shut-off, they would have to pay 25%, or about $6,000. In June, after Mendoza submitted proof of his diabetes diagnosis, the city told the couple they could pay $2,500 to avoid losing their water.

The couple said they could not afford to pay. Their lawyers contend that the city is threatening to violate several regulations, including one requiring a good-faith, affordable repayment plan, given the plaintiffs’ financial circumstances.

“There are a number of protections in the law and they are essentially operating outside of them,” Griffin said.

In March, the city sent a $58,000 water bill to Elvira Beltrez-Tavarez, 55, and Francisco Tavarez, 63, who bought their two-family house in East Elmhurst in 2003. Tavarez’s medical conditions preclude him from working. Beltrez-Tavarez is job hunting.

Tavarez has spherocytosis, a blood disorder, and heart disease. Money is so tight that the couple makes regular trips to the food pantry.

Tavarez’s lawyers say the bill caused him such anxiety that it sent him to the hospital. When he was released in April, his discharge form’s first instruction was, “Stay hydrated.”

After finally meeting with a city official, Tavarez and Beltrez-Tavarez were told they had to pay $14,500, 25% of what was owed, and enter into a repayment agreement to avoid water termination.

They did not have that money.

In May, a city representative told them that a $6,500 down payment would allow them to keep their water service, as long as they agreed to a repayment plan to settle the balance. They did not have that money, either. At no point, according to the suit, did the city inform them that Tavarez’s medical condition might have exempted them from losing water service.

In June, the city told them that their water arrears had been paid off, but did not say by whom. Their lawyers believe the company that services the mortgage, Newrez, paid the bill to prevent another investor from buying the water debt, and potentially interfering with Newrez’s ability to foreclose on the property.

A spokesperson for the company said privacy laws preluded it from commenting on individual homeowners, but that as a mortgage servicer, it had to take all reasonable actions to prevent new liens on a property.

The couple expects to now be billed by Newrez for the outstanding $58,000 — probably rendering their mortgage unaffordable.

“There’s no way out, basically,” Beltrez-Tavarez said. “I feel like we’re just trapped. We’re trapped with nowhere to go.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.