Increasing water bills for Bellwood, Illinois- advice needed

[Shardae Young]

Hi All,

Hoping to receive some advice. I have owned a 4 unit property in Bellwood, Illinois for about 1 year this month. On average the water bill was previously manageable of course I notice an uptrend over the summer months. However this month, the water bill doubled. The water department has already come out and each tenant’s apartment was checked and no leaks were found. Now my property manager will check the meter daily this week to compare and further investigate if tenants are leaving the water running. So I thought about having the meters separated for each unit to pay their own water bill. Currently the entire water is on one line, assuming this would cost a significant chunk of money to separate the lines. If I average out the year for the water bill and increase rent accordingly it will increase by about $80 bucks per month per tenant which is a huge chunk of cash for anyone. Right now i I have inherited 3 tenants out of 4 all of which are paying rent about $100-150 below market. Two leases are up at the end of September and not sure if these tenants will be staying, but planning on increasing rent by 3-5%. Anyway looking for anyone in the Bellwood area or Chicago suburbs who ever came across water issues and what you have done to address the problem. I have found most properties in bellwood, owner pays the water. (Oh and yes I will look into installing lo-flo faucets, etc).