Lack of water update

Since I last posted about the water we’ve had two more visits by representatives of our provider Acea, that’s 3 in total, each has said something different and nothing has been done.

Last week we heard that Anna at the bottom of the road had received a quotation for the work which her family emailed to us.  It was basically two lines, the cost of supplying a single pipe sufficient for one property to the top of our road and the cost of one meter box. The housing and support for the meter and obtaining permissions for the Comune would be Anna’s responsibility and the money almost 16,000 euro was to be paid now despite no timescale for the work.  At first Anna asked the other 3 properties to put their share into her bank account so she could pay. We refused to do so, if anything happened to her we’d have no claim against her estate without some written legal agreement, even then it could take years, if Acea defaulted we’d have no contract with them and if work proceeded and we then asked to be connected at the new location, at a further cost, they might say the supply wasn’t sufficient.  To their credit when we explained the neighbours realised this and replied to Acea asking for more detail as did we.

Nothing happened so we contacted the Comune who had said they would help in any negotiations, they suggested another meeting.  Again we explained we have to turn off our supply and store water to avoid the expensive leaks, we’ve had three ineffective meetings, we want no more talk we want a proper water supply. They didn’t like that and said it wasn’t helpful, they have since ignored us.  However they have been applying pressure to a neighbour, raising issues like a manhole built maybe 30 years ago without permission and the fact that because we 4 properties are on a private road the refuse collectors shouldn’t come to our houses to collect our rubbish though no doubt they will continue to charge us.  So far they still collect but now we are the only ones in the road, everyone else has left and all the meters are turned off.  I would have no problem taking our rubbish to the top of our private road, I only use 4 of the available 6 days a week collections as I compost a lot and have no food waste being from Yorkshire.  But others here are elderly, not so mobile and when resident would face a long uphill walk with their refuse.

When you see the number of abandoned properties here and in fact in the whole of Italy just think it’s probably because of stupid legislation and bureaucracy, people can’t fight forever they have to get in with their lives and they leave.   I’ve said before we are a village of 3000 people we have our own town hall with 40 staff, yet no one can do anything to provide probably half the population with a decent water supply.  Some days I cannot wait to get back to Yorkshire, living in Italy can be exhausting.