Water and utility bills are still a hot button issue in Lorain.
News 5 started reporting on residents’ frustration and outrage months ago, when the city started hiking up the bills.
Wednesday News 5 talked to Linda Turley, who's owned a home in Lorain for ten years and is dealing with unpaid bills a past tenant left behind.
"When my tenant moved out of the house and I called to take over the water bill, I found out there was a $1,500 water bill outstanding," Turley said.
She explained that it costs $12 to have a tenant’s bills mailed to another address, and could have checked online, but after years with the same people in the house, she believed they were up on utilities.
Turley is left with a choice now: pay the bill and find people who can afford the home and utilities or pay the bill and try to sell the home.
“This is a four-bedroom house, how will a family live here and afford the water?" Turley said. "I just have to get the water turned back on and get the house cleaned up and ready to go."
But the $1,000 plus she owes isn't for the year. It's for two months of water, according to Turley, plus late fees and sewer charges.
Those rates will continue to rise, and she said she hopes all residents understand that; "In a city where the median household income is $23,000 how anyone is going to afford this now or in the coming years, I don't understand."
"I live in Amherst, which is the neighboring community. And my bill last month for water and sewer was $52 and I have 4 people in the house. I calculated that bill out, here it would have been $180," she said.
News 5 spent days in Lorain this past spring, after dozens of residents sent complaints and concerns to the station.
RELATED: Water bill woes: Lorain residents upset over water rate hikes
City council voted to raise water fees and sewer rates last year from 30 cents for each to 10 dollars for water and 15 dollars for sewage, for a home with an average meter.
According to city directors, there was no way around it, the bill increases happened to pay for EPA mandated upgrades. The Environment Protection Agency can and will fine the city if it doesn't make the changes.
The rate increases are planned to continue here in Lorain for the next 20 years.
"Perhaps you're paying a $150 water bill, that water bill going to be $250 in ten years," Turley said.
Dan Given, the city's director of Public Safety and Service, sent this statement via email in regard to the reporting of this story back in April. We did not get a response to our email to him today.
"We are just as upset that we have had to increase the rates to the effect we have for our residents. These changes were based upon the continuous expensive need to update our water and sewer systems as well as comply with all EPA requirements. Clean water and environmental maintenance is expensive and ultimately in the best interest of all of us. Although costly to us all, the need for these services far outweigh the monthly luxury items like cable TV and cell phones that increase without any accountability."
