GAUTIER, Mississippi (WLOX) – Has your water bill skyrocketed unexpectedly and without explanation? On Wednesday, a Gautier homeowner told WLOX News he had exhausted all of his options and couldn’t understand how his water usage had increased more than five-fold from the previous month.

Thomas Powell is a retiree who lives alone in his home in Hickory Hills. According to his water bill, he uses an average of 5,000 to 7,000 gallons of water per month. In June, his meter read 6,680 gallons. A month later, the reading jumped to 34,360 and his bill rose from $162.29 to $747.72.

“Can anyone tell me on what planet this is even reasonable?” Powell said, pointing to the city of Gautier’s water bill. “It seems almost impossible that I used 34,000 gallons.”

Last month, he spent 10 days in Florida and said he shuts off his toilets while on vacation to make sure a pipe doesn’t burst. When he saw how much he was being billed for water, he contacted the city’s water company for answers.

“They were pretty rude about it being their fault,” he recalls. “They said: Either I left the toilet running, or someone stole the water, or I have a leak under the floor slab.”

Powell hired High Tide Plumbing to inspect his home. WLOX News obtained a copy of his invoice, which stated that all fixtures were checked, the toilets were not leaking, and no water damage was found in or around the home, including the slab.

While Powell does have a swimming pool, he said it only has a 24,000-gallon capacity and hasn’t been drained in months.

WLOX News reached out to Gautier’s public works director, Ramona Morgan, about the issue.

“Sometimes we get complaints about high water bills,” she said. “These are not necessarily just spikes in the bill.”

She explained that sudden increases are often due to running toilets or leaky showers.

“Believe it or not, a clogged toilet can actually account for 300 gallons a day,” Morgan said.

If one of Powell’s toilets had drained 300 gallons a day for the entire month of July, that would have been only 9,300 gallons. Assuming he used an average of 6,000 gallons, that still leaves 18,700 gallons unaccounted for.

City staff installed an inline meter to ensure Powell’s current meter was showing the correct readings. After checking, the city told Powell there was nothing it could do except adjust his sewer bill if a leak was found.

When WLOX News asked the public works director if the seemingly inexplicable increase in usage raised questions, she replied, “I don’t necessarily see it as a warning sign because I’ve seen it with toilets before.”

Powell posted his water bill on Facebook and said he was surprised that numerous other homeowners in Gautier were having similar problems.

“I saw no less than 20 people on social media who were getting inflated water bills,” Powell said. “I don’t necessarily believe half of what’s on social media, so I invited them down here to the golf course.”

On Thursday, August 22, at 6 p.m., Powell is hosting a public meeting at Hickory Hills Country Club to discuss the issue with other homeowners whose water bills have seen similar increases.

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