[GH85Carrera]

Back at my old bachelor pad house I wanted to do some plumbing work and needed to shut off the water at the meter to replace a faucet. I am no muscle monster, but I don't think I am a weakling. I tried with all the leverage I could muster to shut off the water meter. It did not budge. So I called the city, and they said the meter is working just fine, and they don't want the home owner to turn off meters to do plumbing work, a real plumber can turn it off. So I called a buddy that was a former plumber. He advised that if somehow in unusual circumstances the glass face of the meter were broken the city could not read the usage so they would replace it. There was a very rare and unusual very localized earthquake or something and the glass face was damaged. Sure enough the city came out and replaced the old meter that had likely been in there since 1948 with a new shiny meter that was easy to turn off. It was a very convenient earthquake with no other damage.

Richard, if your meter box is all plugged with mud, they have been estimating your usage and not reading it. You may get a whopper of a water bill, or a little bitty one once they read the real numbers. They should have cleaned it out long ago.