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How often do you come across horrible customers at work and get a chance to get back at them?

This water operator shares how he found a way to get back at a weird customer.

Check out the full story.

Turn your water on? I’ll make sure you cant do that again.

So I work as a water operator for a small municipality, I have 1500 water taps to homes and businesses and roughly 5000 people that get water from my system. I’ve done my job for 3 years and if you ask any water operator, they will have a story just like this or worse.

Watch how things escalate…

So it all starts with our customer, (let’s call him DL). It was winter 2015, and DL’s service line going to his house goes under a state road. Frost goes much deeper on uncovered areas, especially roads. DL’s line freezes.

So DL calls us and we come to thaw the line (this was probably our 5th customer of the year to have this happen). We tell him to run water and we take his metering device off so he can run It and not worry about overage. Cut to 3 days later….

3 days later DL calls me and says his water froze again, I asked if he was running water (already knowing the answer). He says he has. Last I checked running water will never ever freeze unless it’s ungodly cold but DL claims it has.

Okay. We thaw it again and this time it sticks. So we talk to DL and decide to put a new tap and pit in for him on a street above him ($1500) for free.

UH OH…

All he has to do is put a new service in (120ft) and he will never worry about freezing AND have loads of pressure he didn’t have on his ancient line. He says sure he will get right on it.

We put the new stuff in for DL in May and watch his place until mid August and we see he has not put his new line in. So I give our solicitor a call to see if we can get things rolling.

Solicitor writes up an unofficial notice saying DL has until the end of September to put his line in. I guess DL didn’t like this because he comes to a monthly meeting our company has (open to the public) to dispute his line being shut off.

His reasoning is that he pays for his water, it can’t be shut off. Well it can be when you agree to put new stuff in and also get a 1500 tap for free. DL’s case wasn’t helped when he came to the meeting drunk as a skunk and carrying a gun on his hip. He was shut down and kicked out and it felt great.

That’s INSANE!

So our board gives DL until Oct. 31 to get his line in. He gets an official notice by registered mail (you have to sign for it or else it comes back to us) saying he has until November 1st to put his line in or the water will be shut off.

The big day comes and no new line is put in. So I shut DL’s water off like I would anyone who didn’t pay their bill. DL stops by our office screaming about his water being off. When asked if he read the notice he says he never got it.

Our secretaries tell him they can’t do anything and DL leaves. Looking at the security cameras we have, you can clearly see our notice sticking out of his pocket. (Keep in mind he has to sign for this notice to be delivered and we never got it back).

A few days go by and I get a feeling he turned his water back on. Sure enough, we check and DL has turned himself on.

It gets scarier!

I upgrade and use a lockout tool, basically it’s 2 plastic plates with rubber in the middle. When it is screwed down the rubber expands and seals the curb box you turn the water on from. I put this in the pipe after shutting the water off.

The next day I stop by and see DL broke our lockout tool, and turned himself back on and put the tool in there as if I wouldn’t notice. So I go from a 1 in my fighting scale to a 100. I get my crew to come together, and we stake out his house.

Once DL leaves for work we strike. We dig up his line across the state road and unhook it from the main. But, me being the vindictive prick I am, that’s not the end.

I hook a chain to the backhoe we are using and pull his 25 ft copper line out from under the road and leave It in his driveway. I go to our district court house and also have him fined almost 300$ for turning himself on illegally and rendering a ‘theft of service’ against him.

He knew he had to get back at this guy!

Good luck turning your water on now AH.

1 week later DL has his line in and to this day will not look at me because he knows he was in the wrong and it never had to escalate to that.

WOW! That’s some revenge!

Let’s find out what folks on Reddit think about this one.

This user wants to know more about the new service line.

This user wants to know the cost of a new line.

This use knows what this young whipper needs!

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a restaurant employee who decided to put the staff over customers despite the official policy.

This user knows how this story became a pro revenge story!

This user thinks it is insane that people are still paying water bills in person!

Somebody knows how to deal with annoying customer!