WARREN, Mich. – For years, a Warren man watched his water bill stay steady: about $40 a month at his home in the Lafayette Place manufactured housing community. Then, out of nowhere in May, it spiked to more than $580, with no clear explanation.
He couldn’t cover it. Now, he’s staring down an eviction notice. With the help of his tenant union, Mr. Mike’s Neighborhood, he reached out to Local 4.
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Local 4 has been tracking water-billing issues at manufactured housing communities across the region.
Albert Speier showed Local 4 his water use ledger that dates back years. In April, he was charged $41.03 for water and sewage.
Then suddenly, in May, it went up to $581.26.
“How many swimming pools would that be?” Local 4’s Kyla Russell asked Speier.
“Anywhere from five, four to five, 16 foot, 5.5 feet swimming pools of usage of water,” he said.
Speier has lived at his Lafayette Place home for six years. He says he’s paid his water bill on time for years. That’s until May.
“$581.26,” he said when asked what May’s bill was.
“Describe the moment you saw that?” Russell asked.
“I was like, this is totally wrong,” he said.
He asked how a bill could rocket from around $40 to $581.26 in four weeks. That’s about $540 more than April.
He says they told him there was a leak.
“They said it was on my behalf. They didn’t say where,” he said. “With that amount of water, the whole front of my house, or the back of my house, or my whole yard would be a swamp.”
“What would cause this issue?” Speier said he asked. “He said, ‘All your faucets in your house and your outside spigot would have to be on to generate that much water.’ … 24/7 for the month.”
But, he says he couldn’t get straight answers and he couldn’t afford to pay it all at once.
So, he paid half, hoping the rest would be resolved and that his money would come back.
Instead, he says another letter showed up. This one came with a different demand.
“And they had, ‘you can either pay it or you and your occupants can move out,’” he said of the letter he received.
“What does that do to you financially?” Russell asked about the $580 bill.
“Well, it made me resort to I had to get rid of stuff I had,” he said.
Since then, he also hasn’t gotten June or July’s bill.
Local 4 reached out to Sun Communities on Thursday to ask for any response and have not heard back.
“Great if they credit my account. I would be happy,” Speier said.
For information on Mr. Mike’s Neighborhood Tenant Union, click here.
For previous stories done on water billing issues at manufactured housing communities, click here.