Proud to be a "Conservative" American

I have been questioning my former American way of life of late. Why, you ask? Because since mid-November we have basically been feeling like we must be the most wasteful family on the planet. Below you will find the water usage report for the six homes on our cul-de-sac. The numbers represent cubic meters of water used in a certain time period (I think it’s a quarterly report, but I could be mistaken). These are the actual numbers of water usage, and I have used the actual names of all home owners on the form I was given. I promise I am not making any of this up:
 Khil                   517
Ducrocq           335
Blanc                356
Lousse          2,093
Renot               134
Velasco            187

Would you like to know which home we live in? You guessed it—our landlord is named Monsieur Lousse, and my little American family of five apparently used about 6 times what the average other home used on my street.

Our landlord was understandably concerned. We had agreed on a certain monthly price for utilities. Our usage was so far above what he estimated we would use that he wanted to send us a bill for 4,000 Euros to make up the difference over the past few months (that’s almost $6,000), and that’s when WE became “understandably concerned.” We knew water was expensive in France, but with these rates, it would be cheaper to bathe in champagne.

I have to stop and defend myself a little here. I was raised to be conservative. Let me tell you, I was raised to conserve not only water but all utilities. All my life after a few minutes of water running to fill up the bathtub, there was always a brisk knock on the door, “Tiffany—that’s enough water now.” It was a cardinal sin in my family to leave the lights on when you left a room. You didn’t leave the water running when you brushed your teeth, and you most definitely did not shower longer than about 10 minutes tops. Ask anyone, my parents have energy efficient EVERYTHING, including fluorescent bulbs, extra attic insulation, their own 500-gallon propane tank they use for cooking, and they even have solar panels on their home. Though my parents are not politically liberal, you would think they were the biggest tree huggers their side of the Rockies, and I am including all residents of Oregon. Mostly my parents taught us to be careful with our usage of public utilities for the sake of conserving money and to promote self-sufficiency, and I appreciate every lesson I learned. As an adult I am anything but wasteful with my water usage, or so I thought. . .

Jason and I began to really fret over this issue. Why did we use so much more water than our neighbors? Everyone knows Europeans don’t bathe that much, right? I mean, that must be why they all have bidets. Also, I have three kids. That’s a lot based on European standards, and I probably do way more laundry than anyone else on my street. We also do one load of dishes every day! We probably flush the toilet too much too! Oh why do Americans have such big families and go to the bathroom so much?!? I told Jason I guess we were just going to have to limit our kids’ fluid intake, and start doing dishes by hand, but I’m not really willing to bathe less. Maybe my kids could go every three days instead of every other? But I had to ask myself, are MY OWN PERSONAL baths really worth $6,000.00?????

After a whole month went by, we finally realized maybe the problem wasn’t just us and our American consumption patterns. Maybe it was a bigger problem. Sure enough, after first locating and then checking the meter attached to the house, a thought dawned on us, “Hey, those little dials shouldn’t be spinning so fast when we aren’t even using any water!” So, according to the meter, we discovered there had to be a leak somewhere to the tune of about 1 cubic meter of water EVERY HOUR!! We immediately notified the landlord, who immediately sent someone over the check it out. Sure enough, the repairman located a leak on an external, underground pipe. By the very next day, it was completely fixed.

So, yes, I’m exonerated!! Even though our landlord is FURIOUS that the leak continued for a month after the initial report (whoops), and that now HE has to pay the extra water costs and not us (sucks to be him), I now know my parent’s conservation lessons were not for nothing! I am NOT a wasteful American, but an environmentally conscientious one. Thank you, Mom. Thank you, Dad. Furthermore, the best thing about this story is that I don’t have to contemplate giving up bathing anymore.