Dear Billy T and Somerville/Medford News Weekly Speakup Line,

I see that you are pounding the Somerville Water Department vigorously every week so we’d like to share my friend’s experiences with their situation with the water department. They’ve asked on other platforms as well, but getting no satisfaction hoping that your view on things are different.



My friends are relatively a new homeowners in Somerville, with a 2-unit home in Winter Hill. We know there have been *lots* of posts about this already, but we’re still a bit confused by it all, so I’ll just ask you straight up about their numbers.

Their combined water/sewer bill for both units (total of four adults) is working out to about $1,120 per four months.
(The bill window keeps changing, so I’ve standardized it to exactly four months here). Does this seem too high to you?

It does to them. They’ve asked some neighbors and they thought it was very high. Tenants don’t seem to be unusal in their consumption. They have the online flow app and it seems fine. Is this high enough that they should reach out to anyone at the city (Water Dept, city counculor), and if so, what to say? They also saw some postings about expansion tanks maybe being a problem, but couldn’t follow all of the detail – should I be looking to see if they have one of those?
Any other thoughts welcome. Thank you!