2026-08-20 10:03:38

A man was left facing a £7,000 water bill after his meter claimed he had used enough water to fill thousands of baths.

Mick Foy, 64, from Ditton, Kent, was alerted to the bizarre bill after South East Water contacted him in July about unusually high usage.

The construction worker, who lives with his wife Debbie in a three-bedroom home, said the company described the consumption as “totally out of the ordinary”.

He checked the meter himself and was stunned to find it spinning wildly.

He’s quoted by the Daily Mirror newspaper as saying: “It was spinning around like there’s no tomorrow. It was just going into a complete frenzy.”

Mick recorded the reading and returned 24 hours later to discover the meter claimed he had used 54,000 litres, equivalent to around 300 baths.

He said: “There’s nowhere that sort of water could come out of here in a private residence. I’m thinking, a plumber, are you for real? I’m telling you, there’s no water anywhere.”

Between July 24 and August 13, he says the meter recorded another 1,212,428 litres, enough to fill more than 6,700 baths.

Mick said the situation had been particularly stressful for his wife, although he wasn’t as “fazed”.

He added: “She lost a bit of sleep the first night, but you can’t do anything about it. You’ve got to wait for the powers that be. But it does faze you a little bit.”

South East Water initially froze the bill and promised to send a plumber, but Mick says the appointment was missed, with the rearranged visit due today (20.08.26).

His MP Helen Grant has contacted the company, asking it to investigate the issue and “treat them with the urgency they deserve”.

South East Water said it could not comment on individual cases but would escalate Mick’s concerns internally “as a matter of urgency”.

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