A Bloomington resident has filed a complaint with state regulators after the water bill at his mobile home increased fivefold.
Nathan Simon told the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission the water bill at his father’s former trailer at Arlington Valley mobile home park recently has been about five times higher than normal, even though, by his calculation, the water usage only doubled.
Simon wrote his father lived in the park until he had a stroke in April and moved to a nursing home. Simon has since rented out the home. When he reviewed old water bills and compared them to those of the new tenants, he noticed a sharp increase.
According to the complaint, the park’s owner, Oak Brook, Illinois-based Continental Communities , hired a company last year to install new water meters beneath each trailer. That company, Simon wrote, said it supplies usage data to Continental, which then calculates each residents’ bill.
Simon asked state regulators to make sure the park's residents “are not being exploited by unethical landlords.”
Simon says the bills lack the state-required per-gallon rate.
He said via email, “There should be a clear explanation of how the amount is derived from gallons per month to dollars. From my calculations, the rates seem to vary each month without any explanation."
The mobile home park, about a half mile southeast of the Ind. 45/46 Bypass and Interstate 69 interchange, has about 225 occupied mobile homes, according to the complaint.
Amy Wilson, Arlington Valley’s community manager and home sales specialist did not reply to an email. An employee who works in the Bloomington office said, “There will be no comment.”
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Simon's complaint asks regulators to review whether Arlington Valley is acting as a utility.
“My main concern is to ensure that the water Arlington Valley Trailer Court and Continental Communities are billing to residents accurately reflects the water usage recorded by the City of Bloomington Utilities,” he wrote in his complaint. “We want to ensure that there is no unjust profit being made by Continental Communities from the utilities provided by the City of Bloomington.”
A map from the City of Bloomington Utilities shows the park and its water lines are privately owned. A CBU spokeswoman said via email, “The management gets charged for all the water that flows through the meter for the whole park.”
Simon alleges in his complaint other mobile home owners also have seen their water costs go up after the meters were installed.
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"Many residents I've spoken with have experienced monthly bill increases ranging from $50-$100," Simon wrote.
Tenants in the park who were willing to speak Tuesday could not confirm that their water bills increased, though they said they were generally reluctant to talk on the record for fear of retribution from the park owner .
One tenant said he had not experienced any large swings in his water bill while another said his water bill is included with the rent payment, which hadn’t changed recently. One tenant said her water bill increased recently, but she thought it might be related to a water main break that flooded the roads and left her backyard covered by about a foot of water.
Pass through costs are OK, but upcharges are not under state rules
A spokeswoman for the Indiana Office of Utility Consumer Counselor , a state-funded consumer advocate, said it is not unusual for a mobile home park or apartment complex to pay a water utility a lump sum for the entire complex and pass the costs to tenants via rent or separate bills.
“If the landlord is passing the cost through to the tenant, dollar-for-dollar, and not profiting, that’s OK,” Harpreet Sandhu, an OUCC external affairs specialist, said via email. “However, if a landlord profits off the re-sale of water, then it may effectively become a utility without proper authorization.”
Sandhu said the IURC, the state agency that regulates utilities, has rules regarding water and sewer sub-metering and sub-billing, and an agency spokesman said the IURC recently updated its sub-billing administrative rule to expand consumer protections.
Luke Wilson, the agency’s executive director of internal affairs, said via email that the agency’s Consumer Affairs Division has received Simon’s complaint, but has not issued a ruling.
When a complaint is filed, the agency typically assigns an analyst to research the issue and relevant laws, rules and policies, he said. The analyst often needs to reach out to the utility and/or sub-biller and sometimes the complainant.
“CAD will attempt to issue a decision regarding the complaint within 30 business days of the complaint being filed,” Luke Wilson said, “however, additional time may be necessary given the nature of the complaint and how responsive the utility or customer are to additional information requests.”
Simon said he filed the complaint with state regulators in part because he wasn’t getting any answers from the mobile home park owner. He also shared an email he received from Arlington Valley on Aug. 9, 17 days after he filed the complaint with the IURC. In that email, from Amy Wilson, the mobile home park company alleges Simon has an “unauthorized” occupant in the mobile home formerly occupied by his father.
In his reply, Simon asked for more information and said he would, if necessary, take steps to have the tenants removed.
“Given the seriousness of your letter and the involvement of legal representation on your behalf, I will also be securing legal representation,” Simon wrote.
Boris Ladwig can be reached at bladwig@heraldt.com.
This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: High water bill at Indiana mobile home park prompts complaint with state regulators
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