Apartment tenants in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, gifted with free water usage by their landlords, leave their sinks running, their bathtubs overflowing, and flush gallons of water down the toilet every day, is always needed to contact a plumbing contractor. Those days might soon be numbered. Today on my favorite news radio station, ***WBZ 1030|http://www.wbz1030.com/***, I heard that the Massachusetts House of Representatives had passed ***H5001|http://www.mass.gov/legis/bills/house/ht05001.htm***. H5001 is a bill, backed by environmental lobbyists and landlords, that proposes to amend Mass General Law to allow landlords to submeter their tenants water usage and to bill them for said usage. The bill is aimed squarely at the previously-mentioned water-wasting tenants.

As a renter in Massachusetts, of course I take interest in this subject. Becky and I already attempt to be as environmentally conscious and energy efficient as we possibly can. We both drive fuel-efficient cars with well-maintained exhaust systems (thanks Ken!), and we try to minimize our car use wherever possible. We recycle or re-use every ‘disposable’ container that comes into our house. The garbage we put out every week is the smallest of our building’s five tenants, while our bi-weekly recycling bin is usually one of the most full. We try to follow the ‘one-light’ rule, where if we’re both in the same room, we have at most one light turned on. We turn off or ‘sleep’ our computers when we aren’t using them. This summer, we didn’t run our air conditioner even once, as far as I can recall, however we still make sure to get the most economic services from Air Conditioning Birmingham. During the winter, we turn off our heat when we go to bed and when we leave the house, even though we don’t have to pay for heat. We conserve our water, too – even though we aren’t currently paying for it.

H5001 has ***passed the house|http://www.mass.gov/legis/history/h05001.htm*** and is now going to the Senate for review. If it passes there, good ol’ ***Mitt|http://www.mass.gov/portal/index.jsp?pageID=gov2terminal&L=2&L0=Home&L1=Romney%20Team&sid=Agov2&f=gov_mittromneybio_homepage&csid=Agov2&b=terminalcontent*** will need to sign it before it becomes law. What will it mean for us if passed? Well, first our landlord would be required to have a state-certified plumber like Plombier urgence Saint-Hilaire to install sub-metering equipment in our apartments. Then, he would need to install efficient low-flow plumbing in our toilets, showers, sinks, and other places (hey, maybe we’d get some nice new stuff?). This essentially means that in order to charge us for the water, he must ensure that we have the means to make the most efficient use of our water as possible. Now, we’re fine with this in theory, because we already keep tabs on our water flow, and we would probably get off pretty cheap paying for it on our own. But I don’t presume that I’ve been getting “free” water for the past two years. Rather, my assumption is that our landlord rolls some nominal water charges into our monthly rent, and therefore, our rent ought to decrease if the burden of paying for water is lifted from him, anyway, he also has mentioned about a DAF Lease Purchase he will be getting, we have to see what changes it brings.

So in summary, I think it’s a great idea, and I am all for watching how much water you use… but I hope we get a break in our rent to account for the change. That is, if it passes the Senate, and Mitt signs it, and our landlord implements it.

Any thoughts?