In the 27 months since my son died in Feb. 2013, my house has been vacant for 22 of those months. Yet in 2013 (occupied for 2 months) $1400. Was added to my taxes. In 2014 I had a $68 credit on 9/1 but a bill by 12/1 of $1370 (just in time for taxes) which was deducted, thankfully, when I informed them the house was vacant. I was sent a corrected bill of $47 which still did not compute since I started out with a credit, which meant $115 of water was used by no one! THEN I received a bill for Jan. And Feb. For a total of $1700, which I am sure has increased $200 for nonpayment. NO ONE answers the phone so I had to drive a 2 hour round trip to set up a meter read. I drove 2 hours again the night before the appointment date and the meter reader did not show. Since then I have called over 40 times or more with no answer. They attempted to call me when I was at work, left a # to call but every department seems to be away from their desks!! Mayor, councilman,etc. Only person who tried to help was City Manager's and she went on medical leave. They add 10% to your bill for nonpayment but I do not owe anything, not even the $47, because NO water was used!! $1700.00 equals approx 70,000 gallons of water, in 2 months...common sense!!?? A vacant single family dwelling? I am a senior citizen, planning to move to Inkster but something is drastically wrong! Since us lowly taxpayers pay the salaries of everyone who works in that building they should keep that in mind don't you think. I even went so far as to pay someone to check for any possible leaks...none were found. I have been told that others are experiencing the same escalated and outrageous charges. I think it's time they admitted that their new meters are defective instead of saying you must have a leak of 70,000 gallons. I guess if I was an employee I wouldn't want to answer the phone either